Lately I’ve been on my phone way too much. And the weird thing is, I know it makes me feel bad. So why do I keep doing it?
That question sat with me for a while. Because every time I’d try to explain it, I’d come up with something that sounded reasonable. I’m bored. I’m tired. I just need to decompress. All of that felt true in the moment. But it never fully explained why, three hours later, I’d still be on Instagram looking at stuff I don’t even care about.
So I started actually paying attention to what was happening. Not in a journaling, self-improvement way. I just started noticing. And what I noticed was, most of the time, I wasn’t even making a conscious decision to pick up my phone. My hand would just go there. Some tiny gap in my day, a video ended, I finished eating, I sat down, and before my brain had a chance to catch up, the phone was already in my hand and I was already scrolling.
It wasn’t a choice. It was just what happened in the absence of anything else.
That distinction felt important to me. Because all the advice I’d seen treated it like a discipline problem. Like I just needed more willpower. Just put the phone down. Just don’t open Instagram. Just be more intentional. And I’d try that, and it would work for maybe two days, and then I’d be right back where I started.
So I tried the app route.
Everything I Tried That Didn’t Work
Screen time limits on my phone. Set a one-hour daily limit on Instagram. Felt good about myself for about half a day. Then the limit hit, the notification came up, and I just tapped “ignore limit.” Every time. Without even thinking about it. The tap to dismiss became as automatic as the scrolling itself.
Minimalist phone. Grayscale mode. Moved all my apps to the second page. Made my home screen as boring as possible. This helped a little, I think. But the problem is I also have a MacBook. And a MacBook is just a phone with a bigger screen and less friction. So I’d put my phone down and open YouTube on my laptop and it was basically the same thing.
App blockers. Tried a few. The ones that actually work, where you can’t override them, feel too aggressive for me. I’d get blocked from something and immediately feel like I was being controlled, which would make me annoyed, which would make me want to use my phone more out of spite. Not very mature but that’s genuinely what happened.
Every app assumes the problem is access. Make it harder to get to the thing, and you won’t use the thing as much. That logic isn’t totally wrong. But it treats the symptom, not the reflex. The reflex is still there. I’d just route around the block.
The Thing I Actually Realized
The problem isn’t that my phone is too easy to use. The problem is that my phone fills every gap automatically. Any moment where I don’t know what to do next, phone. Any moment where something feels uncomfortable, phone. Any moment of boredom or tiredness or mild anxiety, phone.
And the apps on my phone are specifically designed to reward that reflex. Every time I pick it up and scroll, something mildly interesting happens. A post I kind of like. A video that’s kind of funny. It’s not amazing. But it’s better than nothing, which is the only competition it needs to win in that moment.
Look up and it’s 3pm. You’ve been doing that for two hours. You feel worse than before. And somehow the response to feeling worse is more scrolling. I’ve done that enough times that I stopped trying to explain it logically. It’s just what happens.
It’s been slowly eating me alive. And I keep feeding it.
What I Actually Changed
I’m not going to tell you I deleted Instagram. I didn’t. I thought about it. I’m not ready for that. The FOMO is real and honestly I use it enough for actual stuff, keeping up with people, seeing what’s happening, that nuking the whole thing felt like too much.
Instead I just started adding friction. Not making it impossible. Just making it slightly harder, so that the gap between impulse and action is long enough for my brain to catch up.
First thing: black and white screen when I open Instagram. There’s a setting on iPhone where you can set a shortcut so that certain apps open in grayscale. Colourless Instagram is genuinely less compelling. It’s not a magic fix but it takes some of the dopamine hit out of just opening the app. The reels are less grabby. The posts are less vibrant. It’s dull enough that sometimes I just close it.
Second: I kept the screen time timer even though I know I’ll bypass it. Here’s why. The notification itself is the point. It creates a pause. Even if I tap dismiss every time, I’m no longer scrolling mindlessly. For one second, I had to make a choice. That’s it. That’s all I needed it to do.
Third, and this one actually works: Surfpal Chrome/Edge extension. It’s a browser extension that replaces new tab pages and blocked sites with something you have to interact with before you can proceed. It’s harder to bypass than most blockers I’ve tried, and it works on laptop specifically, which is where my problem was worst. I’ll link it below.
The actual principle is this. I’m not trying to beat the reflex. I’m just trying to make the reflex slightly more effortful. If it takes three extra steps to open Instagram, sometimes I don’t bother. Not always. But sometimes. And sometimes is more than I had before.
Where I’m At Now
Not fixed. Not even close to fixed. I still pick up my phone without thinking about it. I still have days where I look up and realize I haven’t done anything real in three hours. That still happens.
But I’m at least aware of it now. And awareness isn’t nothing. It means that sometimes I catch myself in the middle of a mindless scroll and I actually stop. Not because I’m disciplined. Just because some part of my brain noticed what was happening and went, oh. This again.
The goal isn’t to become someone who doesn’t use their phone. I don’t think that’s realistic for me right now. The goal is just to make it a little less automatic. To put a little more friction between the impulse and the action. To give myself slightly more chances to decide whether I actually want to do this.
And if you’re reading this on your phone right now, having opened Instagram five minutes ago for no reason.