Are you always spending time on surfing social media mindlessly and looking at your screen during the day? Is it taking a toll on your mental health? Several doctors tell why you need to stop.
Are you spending most of your time with your phone? Majority of the answers that we received to this question would be a resounding yes.
Much has been said about the importance of logging off from social media and reducing screen time in this digital age. But ever since we started isolating at home due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the amount of time spent on our screens has exponentially increased. There is an overflow of all sorts of information be it health-related or economy, celebrities or politics but we hardly have any choice over what to see and what not to.
Now, even though Unlock 4 has been implemented, lifestyle changes that we experienced at the beginning of the lockdown, are still prevalent.
With everything going digital, activities such as buying groceries, clothes, going to school, attending office, extra screen time seems like an unavoidable situation. During this, the majority of our time is spent on mindless scrolling and often the information that we gain, does not add value to our lives.
There is an overflow of all sorts of information, but we hardly have any choice over what to see and what not to.
Recently, doctors got in touch with psychologists to know how we can avoid such situations that may take a toll on our mental health. We asked them about the importance of logging out from social media, reducing the influx of information, ways to minimise screen time and how to cope with the fear of losing out. Here’s what they said.
IMPORTANCE OF TAKING BREAKS
MAKE A ROUTINE FOR YOURSELF
FEAR OF MISSING OUT
AVOID EXTREME STEPS AND JOURNAL
So, are you all set to say goodbye to the endless hours of mindless scrolling?
Addictive By Design
All social media is designed to keep us coming back, but that’s especially true of mobile apps. In recent years, there’s been pushback against the sticky interface design on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Features like autoplay, endless scroll, reverse chronological timelines, and push notifications were once heralded as frictionless, user-friendly design. Now they’re described as manipulative.
Desktop applications aren’t free of these hooks, but they’re less severe. Part of the reason is that social media is optimized for mobile. Facebook and Twitter might have started out as websites, but mobile usage quickly surpassed the number of people using the desktop versions. Today, a growing majority of people use Twitter and Facebook solely on their phone (54 percent for Facebook, 45 percent for Twitter). You can assume that Instagram, which didn’t introduce web profiles until two years after it launched, has even fewer desktop users.
As social media pivots to mobile, the desktop versions feel clunkier and less exciting. It’s not as fun to use social media on a computer—and that’s a good thing, says Adam Alter, a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business and author of the book Irresistible, which charts the rise of addictive technology. “The feed doesn’t progress quite as neatly as when you’re using a very simple finger swipe gesture,” he says. “You have to scroll the mouse or do something that requires a little extra effort, and even that little bit of extra effort can have an effect on how we experience the world.”
“Part of the battle is teaching yourself you don’t need these apps as much as you think you do,” Alter says. And it’s true. I no longer feel like I need the apps, but it’s nice to know I still want them.
Life Lesson's 