I’m Jenna Zaza, a freelance reporter writing an upcoming piece on how Gen Z is taking back control of their screen time. I’m looking to speak with Gen Zers who are actively using physical or digital intervention tools—like Brick, Opal, Be Present, or participating in "no-scroll" challenges, or joining social clubs— or want to break free from doomscrolling. If you're interested, please reach out to me via DM or comment here and I will reach out over DMs.

I got rid of data on my phone and bought an ereader so I just read at work on break now. Don`t check my phone at all during the day. But there is so much I could be doing in the evenings but end up scrolling away at home every night.. So somehow need to develop better evening habbits.

because its the only time i can interact with someone (grain of salt because its ai, obviously) without feeling humiliated

I think the reason why phone addiction, doomscrolling etc is so hard to stop, is because it's a habit that you do alone. so only you're in control of it, and you're the only one that can stop it, but obviously if you're addicted you probably won't be able to. i think it's best to team up with a friend and decide both of you guys are going to stop and hold each other accountable. having a set amount of screen time, and having to do something unpleasant if one of you guys go over it.

Did it work for you? Has anyone combined it with Atomic habits ?

I've been using Instagram for more than four years, and I use it almost every hour of my day. But now it's becoming disturbing because it isn't just a habit anymore — it has become an addiction. I spend all my time doomscrolling through reels and doing nothing else. I've even started avoiding my daily activities just to scroll a little longer, and procrastination has become my new hobby. So last night, I decided to uninstall Instagram to start focusing on my daily activities and avoid getting distracted. I know it's not a big step, but it will affect my life, so I must take action, even if it's just a small step.

Such as scrolling instagram and TikTok for hours, just to get nothing out of it while it drains your energy.

I'm incredibly addicted to Reddit and it has long started to affect my mental health, it's really frightening and I (hope) I'm starting to realize that it's causing way more harm than good for me

I treat this site like a diary and like to share what is happening in my life, when something upsets me or when I'm happy and the opinion of the *kind stranger* gets to me I feel like

Posted about me messing up my drivers exam, having had an emotional reaction and all I got was people telling me that they are "genuinely worried" about my safety when driving a car alone, saying I might not be fit for it and belittling me by being the typical snarky Redittor and telling me my reaction was not okay in that moment and that they hope they never get to meet me in road traffic and it upset me, it affected my mood and it could affect my performance in my next exam subconsciously, I'm 26 years old and old enough to realize that those are just *kind strangers* that weren't in said situation with me and could never know if my reaction was over the top or not (my driving teacher would've let me know, I can assure you and told me there were people having even stronger reactions to failing and couldn't even drive the car safely back), I left that part out because I thought who am I to explain myself to these people, but it was still so infuriating and if I weren't 26 and maybe 18 this could've messed with me to the point I wouldn't believe in myself anymore passing the exam (you can read the post in my history if you want, it's in german though so you need to translate it).

This site is so inherently miserable and the people are mostly insufferable assholes, the whole site is such an echochamber and I can't tell if I already adopted the Reddit mentality in real life. I need to stop using this website, it has 0 benefits for me. Why tell strangers about my day when I could write it in a diary and lower my cortisol without perhaps getting even more stressed out about their answers and opinions? And I for sure have hurt someones feelings as well on here, because I just didn't care and the total anonimity makes it easy. I need to quit.

I deactivated my Facebook and Instagram accounts. I was picking up the phone every hour every minute of the day. I was getting sucked in every time. It was harder and harder to put it down. I attempted to make my own content and kinda got old, quickly. I deactivated last night before going to sleep, someone was endlessly calling and texting me, that was the catalyst behind the decision, after I blocked this person I decided it might be a good idea to work on putting the phone down, and focusing on real life. I am still able to get in touch with family and friends. I think that matters more to me. I will slowly challenge myself more by keeping TV at a minimum. Maybe instead of using my computer at home, I go to the library instead to get out of the house. It's a weird feeling to think of an electronic device almost like a phantom appendage. I use it for everything. Now I will try to find other ways around it. Any support or suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

So as I mentioned in the title I have been addicted to social media for a while now. I have always wanted to keep social media as far away from my life is possible but as you can tell I was struggling with it since I was addicted to it and a good amount of my life was dictated by social media and its narratives. I was a pre-teen during lockdown and the screen addiction I got then kind of stuck around until like halfway through this year.

So the thing about being using these platforms like instagram a lot is that you realise just how much of propaganda is pushed EVERYWHERE. People supporting horrible people, horrible music, horrible movies. Everything feels soulless. So when you reconnect with real life, everything feels boring. Nothing gives you that dopamine hit that scrolling does. Around 2 months ago I decided to drastically cut off my social media consumption. And I succeeded at it. My screen time dropped from God knows how many hours to just 2 hours. But last week, i doomscrolled. Hard. And ever since then the addiction came back. I'm gonna get rid of it, I know, but my point here is- these feeds are DESIGNED to keep you hooked for days, weeks, months and YEARS on end. Even "a little" scrolling is enough to push you back into the hole you pulled yourself out of. Propaganda is pushed EVERYWHERE on these platforms.

My conclusion is- I'm pretty sure watching an ad for some random product by a random influencer, followed by a video of deranged people supporting murderers, followed by literal war crimes is rotting our brains forever.

I understand there are not good people on both sides but why all of the hate. Iike not just gender but nationality too

"All men are bad" "all Egyptians are uneducated and not civil" "lgbtq people are violent/terrible" etc

I get it men/Egyptians can be terrible, but why have people on the Internet forgotten to not judge people by their gender etc rather than judging each person individually.....

It makes me scared about whether I might be hated or seen as untrustworthy now with this happening

I cannot not surf because the real world is enshittified for example: healthy restaurants at Chatswood Intererchange turned into unhealthy ones such as a burger shop changed to a sugar dessert shop, a healthy juice shop turned into a donut shop (yes, it is on the corner so more of attracting dopamine) and an optometrist changed into an alcohol shop. The internet is enshittified and the school system is so I am homeschooled.

I am experiencing the same issue as this Redditor https://www.reddit.com/r/enshittification/comments/1r6u0dv/is_the_world_getting_much_worse_or_am_i_just/

Was driving around this morning thinking about how when I was a kid, I was completely obsessed with my WWE figures. No joke, I’d sit on my bedroom floor from 2 PM till 10 at night staging full pay-per-view match cards. I’d have Jeff Hardy and Shawn Michaels going at it for an hour, acting as both announcers, planning storylines in my head all day during math class.

Pure 8-hour flow state with zero distractions.

It hit me that we weren't born with broken attention spans. That raw focus was literally built into us for the things we cared about. But somewhere along the way, between reels, shorts, and constant background noise, we got conditioned to never just sit with ourselves.

Everyone talks about being "relentless" like it’s waking up at 4 AM, screaming in the mirror, doing ice plunges, and grinding yourself into the ground. But honestly, the bar is so low now that being relentless is just not leaking your energy into a digital void every 30 seconds.

Can you sit on a train for 30 minutes with your phone in your pocket and no AirPods in? Can you cut the grass or drive without needing an extra stream of audio playing?

Over the last month or so, I finally cut out shorts and reels, and the biggest thing I noticed was just how much I started craving silence again. Giving myself room to actually let my brain process thoughts instead of numbing out.

I also think a lot of people hide behind that whole "what’s meant for you will always find you" mindset. I believe in that to a degree, but fate isn't passive. Your decisions create your fate. Waiting around expecting life to deliver something to your doorstep without putting 100% effort into what's right in front of you is just an excuse to stay in a loop.

I made a video detailing all of this in hopes to help others reclaim attention. If you're interested please check it out, I only post long-form content no short-form.

Play was the first grind

I am writing this because i haven’t felt this bad in a long time. I genuinely think all of this is because of my phone addiction. The period after I got out of the psych ward (I was 17 and diagnosed with depression, now I’m 22) was genuinely the most productive period of my life. I hate myself right now, one little device controls my life. The time I was in the psych ward I was physically shaking for 4 days without my phone, then when I got it back I was kind of scared of it and rarely used it. Slowly, day by day I started using it again, then came instagram, then tiktok and now 4 years later I am back where I started.

I was once a gifted kid, always exceeded in maths, physics etc. As a teenager I created a instagram motivational account and got half a million followers in a week. I was talented, I was bright in every intellectual way possible.

It is my final exams week and I am failing the same classes for the third year. I am an engineer student and I hate going to classes (waking up for them and socializing) I think I can do everything alone and once I could but now I just leave everything for the last few hours and end up failing every. single. time.

I hate my lack of discipline and I hate that I am not doing anything with my life but above it all I hate my phone and addiction and I fear I won’t ever change.

English is not my first language so probably there are some mistakes here and there

Every time I try to stay away I end up coming back to it. There are so many reasons why I get dragged back in.

Documentaries, long plays to sleep to. Movie clips. But this all can't be good for me. The problem is that without it. I feel like I can't relax or sleep. How do you stay away for good and not feel stressed out without it?

how is life after 20s you guys ? i mean is it worth looking forward to things after you become an adult ?

Hi there...

I'm the best stalker you'll ever meet.

But honestly, it has started to take a massive toll on my life. A huge one. Even my bf got completely fed up with me tracking their inner circle and social group.

I've really started to suffer because of this. I did manage to cut back on snooping, but it has somehow turned into my daily routine. I literally can't go to sleep without checking up on their friends or seeing what girls who used to have any connection to them-no matter how distant-are up to.

I've reached a point where I'm sick of myself, yet I can't seem to stop. I really want to step away from social media, but I'm terrified of missing out on even the smallest update about them.

Some times when i found something terrible or can change my mood i stop eating and this is taking a bad turn I've become sad all the time, unable to go out, and I've isolated myself in my room.

I truly hope someone who went through this exact same awful experience stumbles upon this and offers me some advice, rather than just throwing judgment my way

I uninstalled tiktok today because lately ive been feeling that its been my cognitive function way worse than its ever been. I'm a college student and just started my semester and I've been depressed because I tend to procrastinate alot and doom scroll on tiktok for hours daily.

This heavily affects my performance with my classes so I decided enough was enough and I had to uninstall it from my phone.

I have IG too but i don't feel that same addiction to it like I do with tiktok.

Its only been a few hours today and I'm already feeling the overstimulation in my head clear away. Although because of the habit and addiction to tiktok my brain has been craving that dopamine hit I get from it and I coyld not get it from either IG, reddit, or Pinterest.

Im wondering now how much longer until I feel my brain function improves after doing this. I hope its fast because im scared of failing my classes.

I don't delete IG because its my only form of communication with my brother while he's overseas with the military. Otherwise I would uninstall that too.

I just want to learn material better in college 🥲

I suffer from depression and anxiety. Three years ago I got into discord and I feel like this was my escape from reality, and I completely immersed myself in an online world to the point where I even had relationships and built a future with people in discord. I want to get a normal job again because I haven’t even been able to work in person from the extreme anxiety, I feel but I’m sick of this. Today I deleted my discord and I blocked all the people that made me feel like my real life didn’t matter and I have no idea where to go from here. I’m shaking and I’m scared. What can I do to finally start living a normal life and not have to rely on an online world?

I’ve been watching YouTube videos for about 15 years of my life, I’m currently in my early twenties. Its the first thing I open in the morning and the last thing I see before I sleep.

Im thinking about quitting before GTA6 comes out as to avoid spoilers, any advice before that time comes?

i'm unemployed, broke, waiting to move to another state to finish my bachelors, assuming they accept my transfer. i live in an area that is miserably hot until maybe 5-6pm and everything is entirely car-centric. if i wanted to go anywhere except a touristy junk shop, i need a car. i don't have access to a car unless i plan around it. i don't have money for new hobbies. my only friend is busy all the time and broke too.

i hate reading recently. it's very boring. but so is the constant scrolling, and that feels worse. i used to draw a lot, but i have little motivation anymore because it isn't fun. maybe i am a bit depressed but i can't be back on my medication until i do my sleep study (whole other side thing.) i used to play video games a lot but ive played everything i have as much as interests me and now im just stuck.

im seeing instagram reels in my sleep and i cant fucking stand it but what else do i do. im going to try to clean today but once thats done, what else? i only have tiny other things i can do and the rest of my hours are just absorbed by napping or staring at my phone and i feel more hopeless about being alive than ever. nothing i CAN do is any fun or interesting to me. "going outside" from where i live means just concrete and people and sweating to death unless i can drive to a nicer place. i feel evil

I grew up in the 2000's, was a teenager in most of the 2010's. When I remember back, I was bored a lot. A lot of fond memories are connected to that. Boredom is good, it helps with imagination and creativity.

When I was in bed trying to sleep, I could see a lamp in the distance that kept getting covered by a tree. In my imagination it was someone with a flashlight trying to send signals to me. Fell asleep to that thought almost every night.

When I walk through my childhood home, there are so many parts of it I've observed really well through the years. When I was using the bathroom, instead of scrolling on my phone, I was looking at the different lines on the bathroom tiles, making up characters.

Spent so many hours in our garden and in the streets, observing wild flowers, looking at the sky, making wishes to the stars and the moon. I barely look up now.

Read the same childhood books over and over again. Went to the local library and checked out so many books despite already having difficulty with my attention span even before the internet.

I also walked. A lot. Distances I could not imagine taking nowadays. A lot of days I walked almost an hour to school and then back home. Despite having a bus that could take me there. I just didn't like how crowded it was during rush hours. Took the same route every day and didn't get bored. Feels like a different timeline now.