What Can I Do Instead of Scrolling?

I feel the urge to scroll. I can picture my finger on the phone, my eyes skimming the monotonous feed that won’t have anything new to show me since I just did my social media laps an hour ago. Or if there is new content, it’s the bottom of the barrel content consisting largely of ads or people and places I don’t care about. Yet, I scroll on. 

What do you do when you have trained your mind that the reward for working hard, taking a walk, or being fully engaged at work, an activity with your child, or a conversation with your friend means you get to turn your mind off with the numbing, dopamine amusement park that is scrolling. 

Are we supposed to function this way? Are we meant to move from high energy engagement to the low battery mode of our brain that is scrolling? Unfortunately, the reality is that even while some parts of me go dormant while scrolling, others parts are very much enjoying the ride. My eyes are strained, my brain is overstimulated, and my emotions go through an unpredictable emotional roller coaster as I skim through pictures of a college friend’s (well really acquaintance’s) baby shower, gut-wrenching photos of the latest world tragedies, and a video of a child slightly older than my own writing out her whole name (wait, should mine be able to do that by now?).

It’s clear what I should do instead. I should do anything that does not involve me staring at my phone’s continuously moving screen. Take a walk, look outside the window, or read a book. The list of the most obvious other things you should do rattles off in my head with the same tonality a lecturing parent would use to explain to their child why eating vegetables is important. Obviously, there are ten thousand other things I could be doing instead of scrolling and obviously, I’m going to choose scrolling over them nine out of ten times. 

James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, discusses the idea that when developing new habits, we should work with our human drives rather than against them. Thus, if I know my body and mind is going to want to scroll after I finish my daughter’s nighttime routine, I’m not going to try to affirmation-mind control myself out of these thoughts. Instead, I’m going to assume that a significant part of me will want to scroll and knowing that is true, I will consider what proactive ideas I could experiment with to shift this pattern. 

1. Scroll something new. Hear me out. I know you may be thinking, isn’t the whole objective here to not be scrolling on my phone as much? The thing is, our phone is not inherently the problem here, it’s the way we are using it. What if instead of passively scrolling our social media feeds, we decided to scroll something else on our phones? 

For example, what if I scrolled recipes instead of social media platforms? I always want to cook more. Would I have been a world class chef by now if instead of scrolling Instagram, I read up on recipes? Or even if I alternated, scroll Instagram and then recipes, would my family have a lower microwave-cooked to oven-cooked meals? And more importantly, would my brain feel less zombied out?

2. Choose low-energy alternatives. Here’s the sticky aspect of scrolling. It’s easy. It takes almost no effort and has at least some pleasure attached to it. This makes it a very attractive option when we are bored and particularly when we don’t believe we have time to do anything else. Thus, when you consider alternatives to scrolling, start with some beginner level options. 

For example, if I have to choose between scrolling or trying out the knitting kit that has lived in the back of my closet, I will choose scrolling. I would actually much rather learn how to knit, but my brain will tell me that is too hard. Consider choosing options that you are familiar with and come easily to you. For me, these options would include having books nearby that I can pick up where I left off, putting my shoes on right next to my desk to go for a walk, or even doing some online shopping on my computer. All easily accessible (especially with some proactive planning)

3. Create Friction. As stated, one of the most attractive aspects of scrolling is that it is easy. A core tenant Clear posits from Atomic Habits, is the idea that when you want to break a habit, you need to make it harder to access. Thus, consider how you can purposefully create some friction so that scrolling your phone is a little more difficult. 

There are all sorts of apps and tech tricks to help with this including changing your phone display to greyscale to make it less stimulating for your brain or putting timers on your apps to notify you when you have spent 27 minutes on Instagram. Other options include standing up to scroll. Have you ever scrolled while standing? Again, possible but not as pleasurable as passively sitting and scrolling. Or even telling yourself you have to narrate each app as you open it. Believe me, hearing yourself say, “I’m opening up Instagram now” really can interrupt that pleasurably numb state you are in. 

4. Shift to your computer. You know where it’s not as fun to scroll? Your computer. Perhaps it’s because user experiences are designed for the phone experience, there’s something that makes it challenging to really get into a mind-numbing scroll when you are on your computer. Or maybe something about seeing a meme go from one inch to seven inches is oddly off-putting. I know we are meant to be able to run a whole business on our phones, but it can be a helpful shift to purposefully use our bulky computers as a barrier to scrolling.  

If you are reading this, it means you have already utilized option number one on this list. You may be scrolling but you are scrolling something new. Let this part of you that has some interest or curiosity in changing your scrolling behavior experiment with some different options. 

And if you feel disappointed after losing 40 minutes to your phone, know that you are not alone. Our phones are built to be dopamine playgrounds and getting off of them or shifting our behaviors on them can feel like mental quicksand. Put down the guilt, and the scroll may soon follow.