Episode 90 – Listen to This If… you can’t stop doom scrolling on your phone

Doomscrolling getting in your way? Don’t worry! Jen and Michael have some great tips to break the scrolling cycle and get you back to your task. In this week’s episode of Listen to This If, we’re discussing addictive algorithms and what strategies you can employ to get off your phone and  back on track!

Transcript

Jen (00:00)
Hello everybody and welcome to Listen to This If, which is a new podcast from us, the Let’s Talk SciComm team. And it’s our little pep talk to help you get over whatever has got you stuck today.
And Michael, right now we’re going to talk about Listen to This If you can’t stop doom scrolling on your phone. What’s your advice for us?

Michael (00:22)
OK, so I’m here to pitch one piece of advice. And I was thinking about this problem. And I guess the main problem is that it’s really addictive, right? And it’s addictive for a number of reasons.
I think part of that is, you know, it’s visually stimulating. So you’ve got, you know, colours. It’s also stimulating, you know, in terms of the sound, you know, your notifications. And I guess, you know, the algorithms are showing you content that you really like and you want to keep watching.
For me, it’s lots of food related content. You’ll be surprised to hear.

Jen (00:56)
What a surprise.

Michael (01:00)
So my tip is to not try and necessarily change your behaviour directly. And I’ve, I’ve tried this on myself. It does work to some degree. Where I if I change the environment where the doom scrolling is occurring, um, it can help.
So what I do is I turn my phone to black and white mode. Um, I turn off the sound and you know it’s not as a as addictive and rewarding. Then um, the other thing that I thought of which I don’t know if this would work or not and I haven’t tried it yet, but trying to um trick the algorithm.
So the algorithm shows you stuff that you like. So for me lots of food. But I kind of thought last night, what if I was to every so often just look up something that I find really boring? So I don’t know what that is. Maybe, um, videos of postmen, you know, doing the rounds, um, delivering letters or something, I don’t know. And then that could almost be, you know, try and trick the algorithm into thinking that I really like postmen. Every time then it shows me a postman video, that’s like a little signal to me to say, OK, stop doom scrolling.
And I, you know, I won’t be tempted to stay and watch that postman video because I find postman very boring.

Jen (02:13)
Oh, I think that’s genius. I love the idea of trying to game the system so that you’ll be shown boring stuff. I think that’s excellent.
And look, my idea is a little bit different, but the same kind of idea.
My first suggestion is to just be kind to yourself, because as you say, there are people who spend their lives working out how to make our phones more addictive. Um, you know, you are not at fault. You are not lazy. There’s nothing wrong with you. It is entirely normal. To find when you’ve got another piece of work to do that might feel difficult or hard or stressful or you’re just exhausted that we just get sucked into looking at our screens.
So that’s the first thing. But my main tip is a little bit simpler really, and it’s just to get up and walk. Um, I find for me it’s very easy to just kind of sit and glaze over and just stare and know that I’m avoiding doing something else. And if I could just shake myself out of that.
So I guess similar to you really, if I can just change something up. And for me it’s as simple as standing up, putting my phone face down and walking into a different space.
Often it’s just that small amount of time allows me to kind of reflect on, you know, life is short. Do I really want to spend this time where I’ll have absolutely nothing to show for it at the end.
And knowing me, I won’t even remember what I saw on my screen, you know, do I really want to spend my time that way? Or is there something different that would bring me, you know, a better sense of reward or bring a smile to my face or, you know, just make me feel a bit better about myself.
So that’s my thing is just actually move away from where my phone is, walk away. Ideally walk around the block if I can and just try and reflect. Back on what is it that I’m actually avoiding doing here and how can I make at least a small start on that and not let the time fritter away knowing that I’ll feel even worse. The more time that I spend doomscrolling, actually I feel even worse because whatever other stuff I need to be doing, you know, I then have less time to do it.

Michael (04:15)
Yep. I think that’s excellent advice.
Yeah. Getting up, going for a bit of a stretch of the legs is just that circuit breaker that you need.
And yeah, you know, also that part about forgiving yourself for, you know, the time that you’ve already spent doom scrolling. You know, just let it go because it’s, you know, it’s in the past.
I’m feeling motivated now, Jen.

Jen (04:35)
Self compassion. You know, be kind to yourself.
There’s a reason that you’ve got stuck on your phone, but you also have the power to make the decision to spend your time differently and put that phone in another place.
Like Michael said, change how it looks, change how it sounds, make it less appealing. And then actually re-engage with what do you want to be getting done with this time.
And remember, motivation follows action, so as soon as you take a step towards whatever it is you need to be getting done you will feel more motivated about it.

Michael (05:05)
Yeah, that’s really great advice.
We know this is something that you all have experience with as well. So we would love to hear what tips or advice you have for how you can try and stop yourself doom scrolling so much. And we hope our tips are helpful, but you can let us know on social media.