Digital Detox Diaries: How to Salvage Your Shortening Attention Span?

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Short form content has overtaken the internet. You might find yourself pointlessly scrolling on Instagram for hours and think: How much time am I wasting? And why can’t I stop?

The so-called “doomscrolling” demonstrates itself in excessive social media or news consumption and seeking negative content onilne. It emerged in 2020, when the pandemic worried people and forced them to consume large amounts of unfortunate news. The Covid-19 pandemic could be one example of how negative or dramatic information becomes desirable to the public, since during lockdown people felt obligated to inform themselves about the spread of the virus for their own safety. 

The term has also increasingly been used to describe how people get stuck in an inescapable loop of swiping through new content, non-stop and without a deeper thought, without the ability to break up with the bad habit and focus on something more meaningful. Hiding behind the screen has become a form of escapism for young people and many struggle with picking up their phones when doing other tasks, for example studying.

The reason for social media addiction is the dependence of our brain on the dopamine hormone, which is in charge of the feeling of reward, our mood, attention and more. It’s a chemical messenger that helps the body and brain to communicate. Our brains seek pleasure constantly so it’s only logical that activities that provide a quick surge in dopamine appear most desirable. This results in shortening attention span and obsession with instant gratification that’s associated with work of the limbic brain that's in charge of emotions rather than the pre-frontal cortex, which is in charge of dealing with future problems and problem solving.

Nowadays, we experience an increase in dopamine around 500 times a day, which is significantly higher from when this neurotransmitter was only released in our brain about four times when humans fulfilled their most basic desires like finding shelter or finding water. It’s evident that in such an environment dopamine addiction thrives.

It’s noticeable how phones make us less present. Whether it’s when hanging out with friends or eating dinner with family, over the years phones have invaded those safe social spaces. An exercise that’s worth doing is calculating how much of our lives has been stolen from us by our phones. If you spend 4 hours on your phone daily, you lose 28 hours in the whole week, which equates to more than one day wasted by getting sucked into the online sphere. That is almost 5 days wasted a month, roughly 60 days a year and 300 days over the course of 5 years. It’s eye opening how much of our lives gets stolen away by screens. And the habit of constant phone checking doesn’t come without its consequences.  

According to research, consuming negative news, such as reading about the pandemic or other distressing circumstances, causes higher levels of depression, hurts one’s mental wellbeing and causes psychological distress.

Breaking from a bad habit may require determination and consistency, as well as rewiring your brain back to its original form, and a willpower to resist a quick dose of dopamine that your phone promises. Here is an idea for how to improve your phone using habits, day by day:

Day one

Try to identify when you tend to reach for your phone and think about how many of those times are not out of necessity but merely as a form of distraction. Try writing it down on a piece of paper each time in order to visualise the bad habit. Pause and count to ten whenever you want to open that one desired app and make a conscious choice if you want to click on it or not. 

Day two 

Some find it useful to hide their phone in a drawer or leave it in another room when trying to complete an important task. This way constant notifications and sounds coming from the phone won’t disturb the workflow.

Day three

By day three you might notice that you don’t feel the need to look at your phone when the awkward silence between you and your friend arises and you start to appreciate the quiet moment of reflection and the opportunity to absorb your surroundings. 

Day four 

You might notice withdrawal symptoms, as with any other addiction. Revisit the strategies that you identified as helpful for reducing your screen time. When you do give up and reach for your phone to open a social media app, close your eyes and count to three. On three, you have to exit the app and put down your phone.

Some more days will pass, and hopefully you will be more aware of how to introduce change into your scrolling habits. Simple strategies for reducing pointless screentime to bare minimum can make a big difference.