Practical methods of taking back control of your attention
In your mind, you know that endlessly scrolling reels and shorts is having a negative impact on your life. Yet you cannot do anything about it. The fear of missing out on all the exciting posts and quasi-knowledge overcomes your desire to spend your time with more purpose.
This time was stolen from you by the ones who stand to make a crapload of money.
Get angry. You should be. If someone stole your wallet, I’m sure you would be pissed off. So be pissed off about someone taking your most precious resource — time on this planet.
Keep an open mind
Let’s open our minds to the idea that there is a state where we can be free from brain-rot habits. A world where healthier habits like reading, exercising, learning, running a startup, or being fully immersed in our hobbies take place.
Phones
Trying to stay away from your phone won’t happen. You know it, I know it — you’ve tried it before, and so have I.
They are an integral part of our lives. It’s your wallet, bus pass, flight ticket; it may even be your house or car key. You would probably get lost in your city without it. And that is all OK.
We will start changing the way we consume content on our phones. Social media apps must go. X, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat (or whatever is used by the youth of today) — get rid of them all and log into them via your phone’s browser instead.
Do not use Chrome or Safari. From now on, use Firefox or any other open-source, privacy-oriented browser. You might not be familiar with or used to the user interface, and that’s OK. This will play to your advantage and force your brain to work in a different way, undoing some of the rot.
Get the full app experience
You will see this message a lot. In an effort to lure you back into the compulsion cycle, mobile websites will bombard you with banners, popups, and links to the app store.
Is it annoying? Absolutely. Is it going to remind you that you are wasting your time on this website? Yes.
We are modifying our response to this stimulus — not by installing their app, but by reminding ourselves to get the heck out.
Often, the mobile browser versions of these platforms lag behind in user experience. Facebook, for example, looks like it’s stuck in 2012 and performs terribly. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a conscious decision to keep browser versions worse in order to drive people toward the mobile app. We will not fall for that.
Why specific browsers?
At least at the time of writing, Firefox Mobile offers a good range of privacy protections and even ad blocking out of the box. It also has a healthy add-on/extension community that can help you fight this battle.
One such extension that really helped me is a shorts/reels disabler.
It works by hiding shorts and reels on many popular websites like YouTube and Instagram. It will take some experimentation to find the right setup, especially as time goes on. For example, my Facebook reels are still available, and I do occasionally get trapped by them.
However, YouTube Shorts are a thing of the past for me, and I’ve noticed my ability to watch longer videos has been slowly recovering.
In pursuit of convenience, we have made ourselves far too easy a target for these apps. By using mobile browser versions, things become a little more awkward and a little more difficult — but this friction will change your habits and give you back some control over your attention, without going cold turkey.
You will keep asking yourself, “Why am I using this crap?” There won’t be a good answer, and you will naturally shift toward doing something else.
Replace the old with the new
This part will clearly be very specific to your interests. All I want to add is that these activities will initially feel boring, slow, and tedious. You will feel like you have something better to do, or that you are wasting time on these slower activities.
In reality, your brain is craving the fast-paced, endless doom scroll and the dopamine hits that come with it. It really is like a drug addiction.
This feeling will go away after a few days. I found the following video particularly educational in explaining what’s going on.
You can do it
It may take a few tries to get there. You may have relapses and setbacks. That’s OK — you’re still making progress.
It may be worth investigating the underlying causes of what draws you toward doom scrolling. Maybe there are things on your mind that you’re trying to escape from. It’s OK to feel that way.
Thank you for your time, and I wish you all the best.