A spot of online housekeeping will ensure your feeds leave you feeling nourished rather than depleted.
We all do it. 'Just checking' our phone becomes an hour lost to scrolling. We vow to lock it away and uninstall all socials, but in reality, we know that's not realistic or even desirable.
Because our devices offer us something, whether that's information or entertainment, a way to soothe or escape ourselves, a source of work or preparation for travel. We might enjoy the high of connection or recognition or yearn for the mental relief it provides.
After years of being told we need to break up with our phones, occupational therapist Josephine Dolan-Dufourd (thewellbeingatelier.carrd.co) says it's better to focus on making our scrolling more joyful, affirming and connecting - it's known as 'bloomscrolling'. She made a shift "from an exhausting, curated digital life," to using social media in ways that are "genuinely peaceful and joyful, a complement to my life now."
Part of creating healthier online habits is being more mindful of when and why you're doing it. We often reach for our phones in half-attention' moments: if they're on the table or we're 'second screening'. We're walking and checking, dining and refreshing, waiting and commenting. Josephine now treats social media like "a room I visit for a purpose rather than a place I live. You go to the kitchen to eat, but you don't set up camp and sleep there."
It's also about recognising how it makes us feel, while we're scrolling and afterwards. Our emotions can serve as a guide. Often, we turn to our phones to avoid uncomfortable feelings: sadness, loneliness, guilt, uncertainty, or just boredom. Put in a pause before you pick up your phone and ask, are you avoiding a feeling or could you invite in a different emotion? That could be the joy from learning or sharing interests, the excitement of being inspired, the hope of seeing acts of kindness. Prioritise the feeling you want to cultivate while there and most importantly after you leave.
With this in mind, we need to regularly self-edit our feeds to ensure that our precious time is spent looking at content that is useful, interesting or uplifting. That also means unfollowing anything that makes us feel inadequate, unworthy or unhappy. "Be ruthless," advises Josephine, "if an account feels like a 'should', or unhealthy comparisons creep in, it doesn't belong in your digital home."
When we use our devices to complement who we are and what interests us offline, it can offer depth and texture to our lives. Seeking out poetry might reaffirm your humanity, particularly in a moment when human-made words matter more than ever.
Louise Tilbrook, knitter, pattern-designer and blogger (louisetilbrookdesigns.net) turns to the Calm app for mindfulness exercises, as well as breathwork accounts that post visualisations to ease anxiety. It might be gardening accounts with five-minutes-a-day prompts or books that inspire you to scroll less and read more.
In the Good Hang podcast, Amy Poehler asks her guests what makes them laugh; you might prioritise joy-scrolling, too. Maybe that's watching panda videos at bedtime to give your mind a rest.
Apps are designed to keep us interested by serving up content based on an algorithm, but with a bit of know-how we can move from being a passive consumer to an active participant. Known as 'algorithmic resistance' or 'gaming the algorithm', this shifts according to different platforms, but it's essentially about making a clear choice about what you do and don't want to see, and even believing its you and not the algorithm who gets to decide. This involves intentionally searching for content, interacting with what makes you feel good and disengaging from anything that doesn't. Reset regularly, clear histories, use privacy settings, mute keywords, and actively unfollow. Sara Tasker, coach and author of Hashtag Authentic: Finding Creativity And Building A Community On Instagram And Beyond (Frances Lincoln) advises: "Each app will have a version of 'Show me less of this.'" Unfortunately this is not 'a one-and-done activity', we need to do it on a regular basis to teach the algorithm what we need rather than allowing it to control us. "Having worked in addiction services, I know that digital loops lack a natural stop, so we must create our own," agrees Josephine.
When deciding what to keep and what to reduce, Dr Kaitlyn Regehr, author of Smartphone Nation: Why We're All Addicted To Screens And What Your Family Can Do About It (Bluebird) suggests creating a digital diet', inspired by the food pyramid. The lower levels focus on categories like education and learning, creativity, communication and participation. At the top is more passive screen time. When choosing to scroll in a healthier way, the decision then becomes between say ultra-processed food (classic 'brainrot) or a nutrient dense salad (longer form, more thoughtful content), with no hard rules. Different platforms can offer different opportunities to broaden our lives or deepen our interests so be intentional about why and when we use them. Maybe that's WhatsApp for connection, You Tube for entertainment or, as Sara says, Substack for something more soothing. "The freedom to sprawl across an entire page can feel like luxury again."
As for when it's time to switch off our phones and do something completely different, we each have our red flags. It can be that feeling when your thumbs are moving but your mind has checked out. You may find that you're not fully present (in both online and offline spaces) or feel fatigued. Or it can be an awareness that you're starting to feel anxious or stressed our brains are wired to be vigilant for threats, so it's easier to consume negative rather than positive content).
Unhelpful thoughts might come in: "my life doesn't look like that" or "I'm not good enough". You might feel that energetic surge when you're being pulled into an online drama that leaves you feeling exhausted.
Josephine recognises, "feeling a flash of annoyance when a real-life activity 'interrupts' my scrolling." By making those inevitable scrolling moments more life-enhancing, you may find that you befriend rather than break up with your phone. As Sara Tasker finds, "those moments of connection through a screen continue to bring me surprise and joy. When somebody says, 'me too', and you realise you're less alone in something that you thought. Or you make a silly joke and people join in. When you leave a comment for your favourite author and they reply. Social media gets a bad rap, but it can be an incredible source of connection."