My Anti-Addiction Stack

There were periods in my life in which I would spend more than 4-5h on social media per day. I am a very social person, I also have ADHD. I am the perfect victim for the Metas, Twitters and TikToks to suck me into their abyss.

Willpower alone is not a good method to fight addictions. One must use habits and the environment.

Here is what I am using to drastically reduce my screen time:

• Zero notifications. Work-related messengers (Telegram, Twitter, LinkedIn) only from 9am until 5pm (can be set using Focus mode). WhatsApp and Signal, where I keep important friends and family I have on but on silent.

• Google Wellbeing App:

  • Time Limits: This lets you set time limits on specific apps. I set these to 5 or 10 minutes.

  • Tracking: It also lets you track your screen time, both total and per app, to help you analyse your habits better.

  • Grayscale: It lets you make your phone grayscale in certain hours.

• Focus Mode on Android: This lets you blacklist apps (you can give yourself a 5-minute exception) but the action of having to give yourself that exception and then being reminded every five minutes is a strong deterrent.

• News Feed Eradicator on Chrome. This removes any news feeds. I need LinkedIn and Twitter for work. What I noticed was that I would go on Twitter to check for something specific and then end up scrolling.

Habits:

• Charging your phone far away from your bed.

• Always putting your phone face down.

• No phone in bed or on sofa at all. This is new but works well.

• Pairing media, e.g. educational YouTube content (I watch/listen 10h per week and do not regret it at all), with a chore, e.g. washing up.

Hope this helps someone who is also struggling!