Why I’m starting a quest for mindful scrolling
I am endlessly curious and learning new things is one of great joys in my life. My brain loves lots of input.
However, I am currently in an input rut.
For the longest time now, I’ve had the same mindless scrolling routine: Start with reading my messages (and most likely put away responding to them, which would often lead to forgetting to respond at all), then move on to checking Instagram, Facebook, and two news portals. Along the way I would get distracted by clicking on random links. If nothing pressing stopped me I would do this on repeat — just looping through the same information sources hoping to find something to interest and delight me.
Result? Lots of sunk time, with very little to show for it.
Yes, my scrolling led me to some interesting/useful information. However, most of the time, I wouldn’t be able to recount what I saw/read.
I tried to fix this by eliminating or at least minimising mindless scrolling on my phone. I thought that, if I just managed to stay strong I could get rid of scrolling altogether, and only use my phone for ‘useful’ and mindful activities. To do this I tried different strategies, including:
- Limiting my time using app limit functions on my phone. Fail. After a while I just kept automatically pressing the “Override” button and continuing with my scrolling.
- Doing something mindful (i.e. sending a message to a friend) before turning to mindless. Again this didn’t work for me — picking up my phone is often a mindless moment and I turn to my autopilot scrolling strategy. Often it would be 15 minutes before I realised I was meant to be doing something mindful first.
I am aware that there might be more strategies to try and that some other might actually work for me. But I feel like I gave it a good go, and now is the time for a different angle.
I decided to accept that willpower and energy are limited resources (although recently some of this has been refuted). Instead of trying to be “strong”, I need to accept there will be times in each day when I am just out of either or both, and those are the times I will reach for my phone.
Scrolling is here to stay, but I will spend the next month trying to do it better!
Can I turn mindless into mindful scrolling?
These are the objectives for my quest:
- Actually remember what I read.
- Deepen my understanding of topics I am interested in — i.e. working moms, personal finance, time management, parenting little kids.
- Be challenged and learn things outside of my immediate spheres of interest.
Wish me luck, and if you have any useful resources (information sources, apps), please send them my way. I will report back when this month is over.
