Stop Scrolling & Start Reading! How I’m Replacing My Social Media Consumption
If you are reading this, you may consider yourself as an “addict” of social media. You may have often caught yourself in the act of continuous scrolling and responded with a mental shrug, proceeding with it anyways. Maybe you have also watched the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma as well, and are currently rethinking how, and more importantly, why you use social media.
If this is you, you are in luck because I am the same exact person I just described.
This is how I’ve responded to it.
Preface
Before continuing onto how I substituted my scrolling for reading, I would like to preface that I am first and foremost a minimalist.
Why is this important?
This is important because my goal isn’t to flex a sponsored affiliate link. This is not an ad.
I strongly urge you to not buy anything you do not need. If you have pondered over the decision to buy a product and you can justify the means of it increasing any value into your life (in a non-bullshit way), then by all means. The apps and products in this piece are the ones I have personal experience with and would recommend as helpful tools rather than necessities for the overall goal of reducing social media usage.
Some Context
As I watched many productivity and self development YouTube videos over the years, I always knew reading was good for you. Every time I heard them talk about a book that was mentioned, it was immediately docked on my mental “to-read” list. My Goodreads page was eventually filled with a good amount of “want to read” books compared to “read” ones.
Fast-forward to January 2020, the start of my second semester of college. My New Years resolution was to read more, but that resolution had been stagnant for the past few years. I always made excuses and fell into my old habits, and I came to an honest realization.
From the wise words of Wong Fu Productions:
Time to grow the fuck up.
The Startup
I started reading small books to gain momentum, and I admit that I did take more time than I needed on some books. I admit that I did fall short of my reading sometimes, for weeks and sometimes for months.
It wasn’t until quarantine when I started the habit again. With all the time I’d have off of work and commutes to college, I’d have more time to do whatever the hell I wanted. I knew I did not want to spend all of my time playing video games, watching YouTube videos, and scrolling through social media as I would have done in the past.
This is also the time where I fully actualized my addiction to social media, specifically Instagram. On average, my screen time was about 3-4 hours, majority of the time dedicated to scrolling on my feed. I didn’t post much of my photography, but even if I did post a lot, it didn’t take long to curate a photo and upload it. After every week, I’d look at my smart phone screen time and thought about all of the things I could have done instead of being on my phone. I knew the effects of constant scrolling and refreshing of my feed, the fires of dopamine, almost all of it.
Why the hell was I still spending hours on these apps then?
My FOMO
It took me while to realize this, but I have a huge amount of FOMO (fear of missing out). I’ve been afraid of pursuing some of the hobbies I wanted to do because I was afraid of missing out of having fun with my friends. I was afraid to be left out. In a way, scrolling through socials served as a way for me to be caught up in their lives and to be “present” with them. I’d spend hours to send over memes and dog videos, which was a way for me to connect with them. In retrospect, it was just spam. Nobody wants to see spam.
Looking for Tools
Between the start and end of quarantine, I’d read a few of the physical books from my collection. I started wanting to buy a Kindle for a few months because it looked like the right tool to help me curate my reading habit. The Kindle seemed as an attractive device to me because it made the barrier-to-entry of reading easy. It was as easy as pulling out my phone to check Instagram or Twitter. Also the matte screen is easier on the eyes if I were to read during the evening, whereas a smartphone screen would blast my eyes with blue light.
My frugal minimalist mindset kept on saying “I don’t need it”, and it shamed me for wanting to buy something I didn’t need. A Kindle Paperwhite is around $120 ($140 with ad-removal), so that would be a big amount of money that would be spent on something I might not even get value out of.
Supplementing
This level of uncertainty was met with the eventual buying of the device. I bought my Kindle Paperwhite in September and since then, I’ve gotten the value I was looking for out of it.
Here’s a thought: we are consuming all types of content every moment. Whether it be visual, audible, gustatory, or touch-based, we are consuming information. Because it is inevitable that content will be consumed, why don’t we change the content we consume?
Apparently with an Amazon Prime membership, you can borrow books for free via Prime Reading. Also, if you have a library card that supports Libby, you can borrow eBooks and audiobooks from your library and send them to Kindle devices. With this newfound information about borrowing books, I started selecting the ones I liked. And here’s the kicker: I actually started to enjoy reading again.
After years of owning a smartphone, I have developed a compulsion to picking up my phone. I pick it up for almost little to no reason, and then proceed to scroll through my socials and my messages, even though I know there’s nothing to check. I pick it up when I don’t want to do a task for homework, or even when I’m just bored.
For social media, I decided to delete the apps off my phone. If I really wanted to post or to check something, I’d have to use the Safari browser or go on desktop to go on the site. Doing this made more friction in wanting to check these sites.
Instead of taking my phone everywhere with me, like the bathroom, dining table, and other rooms in my house, I decided to take my Kindle. Mindless scrolling turned into the turning of pages. I found that there is actually so many opportunities to read. Although you may not read much, you’ll at least get a page in, which is better than reading nothing and scrolling through a never-ending newsfeed.
Enforcing the Habit
I decided to create a space dedicated for reading to help my brain see it as a cue to trigger the habit. My reading corner consists of a simple comfy chair and a nightstand. The goal was to set aside at least 30 minutes a day for reading. I combined this with the free Flora app on iOS, which is a pomodoro timer in the form of planting virtual trees. You can also explore the world and plant more virtual plants from other regions. To unlock the plants, you’d need to be productive for a minimum amount of time.
Although this piece may seem like I’ve miraculously changed my life, I didn’t change much. I’m not as much as a bookworm compared to before, and there are still days where I don’t get around to read. There are still days where I find myself scrolling social media, however I’ve been able to catch myself in the act and at least be conscious of the fact that I’m doing it. Sometimes I immediately close Instagram to read, and other times I just want to see videos and photos of memes and cute dogs.
The whole point of this is to be conscious and aware of the content we’re consuming. Being intentional and concerning ourselves with the why of our actions is the goal.
Sometimes we can’t help scrolling through our feed when we’re having off-time; I know that I am very guilty of it. However, consciously replacing it with more valuable content, content that we are actually interested in, is what we can change. And if that can knock our social media screen time down an hour or more, then that’s all that matters.
