This therapist gave up scrolling for 8 months, and lessons were learned
In January 2025, I was not feeling my best. I was tired despite sleeping well, unmotivated, and the things I typically enjoyed often felt like too much effort to engage with. I finally admitted I was spending way too much time on my phone. My screen time reports showed over nine hours per week on Instagram and seven on YouTube. Seeing those numbers shocked me because scrolling had become so automatic, I barely noticed it. Often, I’d reach for my phone out of anxiety or boredom without really meaning to. I had tried setting time limits and deleting apps before, but nothing stuck. So, I set an experiment: what would happen if I quit short-form content entirely for six months?
The first few weeks were rough. Without that easy distraction, my anxiety felt louder. I was irritable, restless, and uncomfortable in a way I hadn’t expected. Suddenly, any uncomfortable feelings I’d been avoiding were front and center. I noticed myself reaching for my phone an unbelievable amount of times throughout the day just to find the Instagram app gone. When I was supposed to be writing a paper, my phone would suddenly be in my hand. After a tense conversation, I was itching to scroll. I found myself engaging in unintentional replacement behaviors, like unwanted eating and a repetitive jewel-matching mobile game. Both felt compulsive, unintentional, and left me feeling unfulfilled with a vague sense of shame.
I decided it was time to form more intentional replacement behaviors, and decided on movement and reading. Instead of sitting and fighting against the anxiety and discomfort, I tried to invite them along for the ride while I made choices that aligned better with my values. I acknowledged when I was feeling dread, and took that dread on a walk with me. I let worrying thoughts join me when I hit play on an audiobook for my commute. More often than not, I was surprised to find that by the end of the walk or drive, those feelings had passed. I had shared these goals with my friends, which helped give me some external accountability and support. Three months in, the compulsion for mindless scrolling was much easier to resist.
In month eight, I re-downloaded Instagram to my phone, thinking, surely I can be chill about this now, right? Wrong-- it only took a couple weeks for me to notice a significant decline in my mental health. “Quitting” the second time was much easier because I knew it was possible, understood what strategies worked, and remembered how much better I felt without social media.
Dopamine, the anticipation and reward neurotransmitter in our brains, is what makes scrolling feel so “addicting”. Despite not being diagnosable as a specific disorder, my compulsive phone use met some of the criteria used to diagnose substance use disorders:
Used in larger amounts or over a longer period than intended
Previous unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control the use
Continued use despite knowledge of the use exacerbating mental health issues
If you’re thinking about cutting back on social media, be honest with yourself — it’s going to be uncomfortable. Your brain will want to maintain the level of dopamine that is present around social media use. You have to decide if it’s worth it to reclaim your time and peace of mind. For me, this wasn’t just about quitting a habit, it was about learning how to face my feelings without numbing them with a mindless scroll.