I’ve seriously kicked around totally getting rid of my iphone and getting a dumb phone or feature phone for several years now, but there’s just too much that actually requires a smartphone nowdays for that to be a viable option for me.
I have (had? it’s still really bad) a huge issue with scrolling. Some things that helped me:
- Set shortcuts to automatically enable grayscale on all addicting apps + remove the toggle for it in control center. When I just turned it on normally, I’d turn it off then it’d be weeks or months before I turned it back on.
- Actually tracking how much screentime I have that day and getting a notification with how much time I’ve wasted. I beemind this, but I find actually seeing the number of hours wasted is a stronger motivator than then the sting of losing money a day later (not that I don’t derail occasionally
). (See: How I track iOS screentime automatically ) - Preventing myself from using screens. I vibe coded an apple app and a browser app that essentially counts ‘time spent being unable to do anything on the phone/pc’ by hogging the screen and literally preventing you from using it. I also beemind this, but I’ve found more utility in being able to stake $X dollars on making it a certain amount of time than requiring a minimum amount daily. Usually by the time I start a session it’s several hours into doomscrolling and I just throw a $20-50 stake on an hour two of zero computer/phone usage in a fit of desperation. Beeminder doesn’t support short term things like this, but they do expose a charge endpoint you can call to build it yourself
- Setting goals for things that get me doing anything other than scrolling. Walking, running, playing games with friends, cooking, grocery shopping - anything that’s high enough effort that scrolling is hard to do at the same time.
- Build TAPs (Trigger-action-plans) that are super low effort that you can do when you find yourself scrolling and dredge up the willpower to do something, anything about it. I stand up and walk around the apartment, but anything to break the cycle and switch from automatic habits to choosing to do something will work.
In general adding lots of little bits of friction to scrolling helps. If you just adds one major source (uninstall app, sign-out, one-time grayscale), all it takes is one bad day for you to have the willpower to remove it. By adding lots of tiny sources, just removing one or two doesn’t make a huge difference (and you inevitably will); you have to go through and change all of them. If said friction automatically re-enables even better.
At the end of the day remember that all these apps make lots and lots of money off people scrolling. They’ve put a lot of time and resources into maximizing engagement. If just one strategy works for you, that’s great and I’m happy for you. But ‘just one strategy’ is generally the realm of motivational books. ‘Tried lots and lots of things, failing a lot, until the accumulated effort overcame the habit’ is more realistic in my opinion