How I Cut Down My Screentime & Scrolling

I want to get a little personal today. I live in Vancouver and during the winter months, it rains a lot. By a lot, I mean almost every day from January until mid/end of April, non-stop rain that seems to pause at night, only to restart in the morning. 

It's normal to get the winter blues here, but as winter turned into Spring this year, I felt like I couldn't really shake them. I love my life, I work out, I have great friends, but I couldn't figure out why I had this underlying feeling of unhappiness. 

Until I took a look at my screentime. 

My screen time had climbed over the winter months, and first thing in the morning, Reddit opens, and multiple TikTok checks a day became part of my everyday routine.

The breaking point was when I looked at my screentime for a previous Monday in April. My TikTok screentime was 4 hours. Now I wasn't sitting on TikTok for 4 hours, but I would check it multiple times a day, get stuck in a little scroll hole for 20/30 minutes and then before you know it, I had wasted 4 hours of my day scrolling. 

Do you know what these were doing? Overriding my brain with hits of dopamine from the first moment I opened my eyes, with those early am reddit checks to those random but consistent TikTok checks. By reading the news on Reddit first thing in the morning, I was often front-loading my day with stress over world events. 

When you scroll social media its not the videos themselves that get you addicted. It's the "what if", the what if that next video or post will be the best piece of content I've ever seen, that keeps you scrolling. So you keep scrolling. Getting constant dopamine spikes with every scroll because your brain is just waiting for that perfect hit of content. 

Scrolling often impacts many aspects of our brains, but for us, these are the two most pressing:
- Trains your brain to find everyday offline tasks boring and non-stimulating, so you struggle with basic work tasks or staying present in conversations. I mean, how could a 30 min in-person conversation compare to a flashy TikTok with cuts every 2 seconds?
- Fries your memory and attention span by inundating your brain with tons of little messages you need to decipher.

Every TikTok or Reel you scroll, your brain tries to make sense of it. If you are scrolling for an hour, how many videos are you swiping through? Your brain is using its energy to make sense of every single one. When you peel your eyes away from your screen to actually do work or sleep, your brain is feeling overstimulated and fuzzy. I actually used to have a constant headache between my eyes. This weird fuzzy feeling that I swear was my overstimulated brain screaming at me. That feeling went away 48 hours after cutting down my screentime. 

These are the feelings and situations that were my new normal with higher screentime:
- Inability to start a task
- Oversharing with personal circle  
- Struggling to stay focused during a conversation, having to look around a lot, changing the subject often and don't even ask me to read something long-form
- Feeling like I had to check social media
- Feeling like my life was boring or not enough, even though I know deep down it is
- Poor memory for work tasks, but also life events (I'll go into this more in a second) 

As someone like yourself who uses social media to promote their business, we have a unique relationship with social media. Where we can't not use it.

So I became uber strict on my usage. I downloaded an app called Screen Zen, but while talking to my friend, I learned there is another app called Opal, which is popular too (this is not sponsored). Check out both.

While I know I had to use social media, I grouped the key problem apps into one group and gave them a stricter time limit of 3x opens a day, which were 10 minutes long each. The goal was to only use one of those opens.

Instagram is my main marketing channel, so that app was given 2x 25-minute sessions a day. I also started using Instagram on desktop, as I attribute computer time to work, so I don't scroll aimlessly. 

What I found interesting is that after the first 10 days, where yes, I felt withdrawal symptoms, I wasn't even using the allotted opens. 

After the first 2 weeks, my brain felt a complete shift. I realized it when I was recalling a past roommate situation I was in during my early 20's, and suddenly I was able to remember all of these details about my tiny Ottawa apartment. I couldn't believe it I would have never been able to recall those memories in the past.

Here are just a few of the many benefits that have shifted into my new normal:
- Less mental fatigue
- No more overtimualted headache
- Stronger memory
- Less comparison 
- Increase in happiness and satisfaction with my life
- Less feeling of being rushed for no reason
- Ease with staying present during conversations

I want to share my story because I know many of you may be struggling with high screentime. I mean, a large part of our job is showing up on social media. It’s easy to fall into months of high screentime, and it feels so daunting to pull yourself out of it. If you know your screentime is too high or maybe this blog helped you see that yours is too high, then know, you have what it takes ot cut it down! I hope this blog helps you start that process.