PicoBlog

Social media is pretty cool. It’s also a tremendous time-drain and personal-potential-draining-succubus. But it’s the infinite scroll that’s rightly to blame. Many of us get drawn in to the black hole of infinite scrolling with only tingly legs from the toilet seat and missing productivity to show for it. So how do we stop the scroll? (I’m not going to say “doom scrolling” that’s too trendy and dumb.)

Definitely continue reading this post but also watch the latest ParkNotes video where I cover this very post in detail (even more detail than this post):

First, you may need to do some literal soul searching and find out what’s got you so twisted up that you’d rather throw your time in the toilet (on the toilet?) than use it in a productive way. Is there a deep-seated heart issue you need to address? I don’t know, but that’s something for you to consider. It could be that there’s nothing deeper than that the social media engineers are just really good at neuro and cognitive science and they’re playing on our psychology to maximize our time on app. But even still, you may have something that needs to be addressed as well.

So think about that first and foremost.

But after that, consider using some of these tricks that I’ve both gleaned and come up with in my own battle against infinity. They all fit into two neat categories:

  i.     Change the passwords on all of your social media apps to crazy, random, or convoluted passwords that you won’t be able to remember on your own. Write the new passwords down in a notebook. Sign out of all your scrollable apps. Make yourself go to the notebook to look up the password every time you’re thinking about scrolling. This friction should help you decide if it’s actually the right time for wasting time.

ii.     Take all the apps off of your phone for 30 days. After 30 days start adding back the apps that actually provide value to your life. Be stingy. Add them back one at a time and mark the effect each has on your time and psyche. If it’s negative, then ditch it again. ((i) & (ii) come from Cal Newport I believe).

iii.     Switch to a literal dumb phone that doesn’t have the option for social media apps. Or at least switch to some kind of minimalist phone that doesn’t use colorful icons to draw your attention.

i.     Your thoughts

a.     Bring a pocket notebook with you everywhere you go. Collect all of your favorite thoughts. Continuously work on them instead of mindlessly scrolling. What’d you think of Dune pt. 2? Write your thoughts down. What do you wish you said to your boss instead of what you actually said? Why do you think you said what you said? Work it through in your pocket journal. Reflect, ruminate, work through, analyze your thoughts. Keep it on you and when you’re tempted to scroll bring out your journal instead. Satiate your mind with an idea rather than a scroll.

 ii.     Thoughts from other thinkers

a.     Use a pocket notebook as a commonplace book for your favorite quotes. These could be wise sayings, summations of your favorite ideas like string theory or simulation hypothesis or divine simplicity or something, movie quotes you’d love to be able to rattle off at will, or epigraphs from the Clone Wars cartoon.  Chew on these meaty quotes and concepts instead of the junk food of the scroll.

How?

1.     Set daily page number goals.

“I want to read on average 15 pages every day.” Boom. Now track the pages you actually read in a reading log to keep yourself honest. “I only got 13 pages today, but yesterday I managed to read 45 pages! Sweet.” If you have a goal you know you want to reach, then you can’t be using that time and energy on mindlessly scrolling.

2.     Plan for uninterrupted time to read.

Look at your schedule. When can you actually give yourself at least 30 minutes and maybe a maximum of 90 minutes of uninterrupted time to read? Okay, schedule your reading time. You are in a meeting during that time. No interruptions. Set a timer (preferably one that’s not on your phone!) and put your phone away or turn it off. You will be tempted to go look at your alerts. Don’t do it. You only have a small amount of time to read and you need to hit your daily page number goals, remember??

3.     Bring a book with you everywhere you go!

a.     I usually bring a leather briefcase/messenger bag with me everywhere I go so I can bring a whole grip of books and notebooks with me. But that’s kind of intense. You don’t have to do that. Just bring a book with you. When you are in the typical scrolling scenario, pull out the book instead. Also, if you’re doing this instead of talking with people, you should work on your people skills. I know it’s rough ad I still use scrolling or reading as a shield between me and the unwashed extrovert masses, but we all know it’s antisocial and a little weird so let’s not do that. But barring that one scenario, definitely pull out a book to read instead of scrolling.

 Sure, bring an e-reader. I like physical books and only use my tablets for reading and annotating philosophy or theology papers, but if it works for you then you don’t need my permission.                                                                                                   ii.      

Boom. Use these. Stop scrolling your life away. Please do share any tips I missed in the comments here for me and for the other readers.

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