Here’s How Mindless Scrolling is Ruining Your Life and How to Stop It…
5 Practical Tips On Eliminating and Overcoming Your Mindless Scrolling Habit
We are constantly juggling multiple things each day. Scrolling Instagram while walking, sending a WhatsApp message, and cooking at the same time. Checking our Facebook while we are in a meeting. Watching Instagram and TikTok videos for hours on end and procrastinating on things that are actually important for our well-being.
The constant stream of endless notifications, and we somehow find the time and attention to address each one of them. We scroll mindlessly to numb our brains for a while, just to avoid something important.
Even a short time alone with ourselves is uncomfortable for us, so whenever we have the opportunity. We take out our smartphones and begin our favorite ritual of mindless scrolling. A deeper reason why we respond to every distraction or notification is that we are avoiding doing something we should do.
As soon as the notification pops up, we address it and over time it becomes so addictive due to the release of dopamine and we find ourselves unable to pull ourselves out of this rabbit hole.
Dopamine is a “feel-good” chemical that our brain releases every time when it expects a reward.
Our brain feels good every time we repeat a behavior that releases dopamine. Mindless browsing, attending to notifications, eating junk food, drugs, pornography, smoking, shopping, and having sex.
All of these release dopamine in our brain that makes us feel good, and this feeling motivates us to repeat these behaviors again & again, even if they are harmful to our health and well-being.
Mindless scrolling is making us dumb. Most of the time, we are not choosing the content that we consume online. On most websites, there’s a newsfeed where you’ll be able to watch content that’s recommended by the algorithm. We don't actively choose our content, but they serve it to us. We form our opinions, worldview, and perspective based on the content we are not even choosing.
“When we forget our ability to choose, we learn to be helpless. Drip by drip, we allow our power to be taken away until we end up becoming a function of other people’s choices.” — Greg McKeown.
According to Cal Newport, the best-selling author of 8 books on attention, focus, and ill effects of social media.
If you spend large portions of your day in a state of fragmented attention — large portions of your day breaking up your attention to take a quick glance, to just check — “Let me quickly look at Instagram”; then this behavior can permanently reduce your capacity for concentration.
In other words, you could permanently reduce your capacity to do exactly the type of deep effort that we’re finding to be more and more necessary in an increasingly competitive economy.
How to Eliminate Mindless Scrolling?
1. Remind Yourself of the Harmful Effects:
We must keep reminding ourselves of the ill effects that mindless scrolling has on our mental health and overall well-being. It hampers the abilities that help us thrive in our personal & professional lives. Such as our ability to focus and concentrate on a single task.
If we are mindful of its exceedingly harmful effects, then slowly & steadily we’ll be able to rewire our minds.
2. Say it Out Loud:
Every time you try to pick up your smartphone or find yourself in the middle of a scrolling marathon, say out loud, “Gosh!! I’m scrolling for 1 hour” Hearing our bad habits spoken aloud makes the consequences seem more real. It adds weight to the action rather than letting yourself mindlessly slip into the old routine.
You’re getting yourself to acknowledge the need for action and that can make all the difference.
3. Motivation is Overrated; Environment Often Matters More.
Reinventing our environment that motivates us to spend time away from the screen can do wonders. Pick one thing or activity that you are interested in: it might be reading, writing, gardening, working out, or anything that interests you. Keep something closely related to that activity at an arm’s distance.
Surround yourself with books if you want to read more, keep a journal nearby if you like to write, and put your dumbbells where you can see them every day. Reinvent the environment that encourages you to repeat healthy behaviors.
4. Make Your Apps Invisible:
When you sit out to work on your important tasks of the day, uninstall the apps that keep distracting you from your actual work. And when you are done with your work, reinstall them if you like.
You won’t miss anything by not checking your email, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Twitter for a few hours. As a matter of fact, there is nothing noteworthy going on on these platforms. Aside from a bunch of stuff that doesn’t add any value to your life.
The way that technologist Jaron Lanier puts it is that these companies offer you shiny treats in exchange for minutes of your attention and bites of your personal data, which can then be packaged up and sold.
5. Find An Accountability Partner
This is extremely important. We perform better when we feel we are accountable to someone. So eliminating the habit of mindless scrolling. Bring in someone who is also looking to eliminate it. They can be your colleagues, friends, spouse, or anyone who shares the same goals as you.
Adding accountability to the whole equation will keep you motivated during the time when you are more likely to falter. And you can also discuss your struggles with your partner and together you can find ways to overcome them and share the benefits you are receiving after reducing screen time.
There is no better feeling than doing things that you are meant to do, taking care of your mental and physical health, and respecting your most valuable asset, which is your time and attention. Mindless scrolling not only harms our productivity. It absolutely kills it.
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