Buzz... You have exceeded your daily screen time limit!
On excessive screen time, mental exhaustion, and the art of being in the moment
Hello, this- Wait, give me a minute. Let me just send this message to my friend on Twitter and get back to you. Wow, haha, did you see this meme in my feed? Wait, what are they talking about? Oh no, I forgot to check the reels on my Instagram. Why did I open this app now actually? *3 hours passes by*. Oops. And just like that, days slip into nights, and there is no way to differentiate between one day and another.
As I drown in n number of tweets, reels, and social media posts for hours, I hear my mom’s voice inside my head saying “This phone you have is the problem for you.” I snap back to reality and think how life has come full circle and now I tell my mom not to use her phone before or between her sleep time.
In this modern world, it is impossible to live without using digital devices like mobile phones, iPad, tablets, laptops, etc. The amount of time one spends looking at a screen is significantly increasing day by day and more often, it results in mental exhaustion along with some other issues that one can only notice when it happens. It is suggested to limit screen time to two hours apart from work and anything more than that can lead to mental health issues. Sleep deprivation, decreased physical activity, doubts in self-worth, increased stress, increased anxiety, forgetfulness, inability to focus, and depression can also be caused due to increased screen time. I do not intend to talk scientifically or factually here. I will link the article sources whenever I refer to anything I got to know from it.
For nearly 6 months now, due to my not-so-happening life and stress, I have been extremely active on a social media platform and I have increased my screen time horrifically. I am guilty of getting trapped in the digital maze where the algorithm controls what I see and I just find myself getting affected by each and every post I see. I have been experiencing mental exhaustion for all these months, especially the past four months, and I have been trying to get back to my old way of living. However, it has proved to be tough to get out of that digital maze once you are locked in. As an empath, letting everything affect me made me lose my mind a lot more than usual which exhausted my mind. I couldn’t focus on the real task at hand because I was tired by then with straining eyes, exploding headaches, and negative self-talk.
Despite the risk of being judged, I have to tell you that I have had months where my screen time was in the range of 8 to 12 hours. The studies suggest that the average screen time globally is around 6 hours per day. I had already exceeded that. The recommended screen time is 2 hours per day and mine was 4 to 6 times higher than that. It took me some time to see this fact and accept it in order to work on it.
When your life is stressful, you retreat to social media or digital consumption to let yourself feel free and relieved. Sometimes, people use it to distract themselves from their feelings or problems in their lives. This might lead to social media addiction as well. However, anything in the right amount might not lead to destruction. One should actively remind themselves that we control life, that we control what we do and not the algorithm. The algorithm learns from us.
I have been experiencing sleeplessness, stress, anxiety, and mental exhaustion for many years. So, I won’t say that excessive screen time is the cause of it. However, it really increased them more and significantly impacted me in my everyday life. Once my screen time started being high, my focus was reduced too much, my forgetfulness increased to a significant level, I experienced headaches every single day, got more mentally affected due to the tweets or posts I saw, and forgot to be mindful of the time I was spending in such a way that the day ends without me performing a mundane important task. There were even more impacts.
Do you all know that using your phone late at night till the moment you fall asleep actually disrupts the sleep cycle, inhibits melatonin secretion, creates memory problems, and affects cognitive abilities?
The only way to overcome the overwhelming impacts of excessive screen time that seems to be out of our control is to take control of it. Instead of waking up and immediately checking the phone, it is suggested that a good morning routine can help with starting a day in a positive way. Honestly speaking, I have had days where I check my phone as soon as I wake up and I get affected negatively due to what I see in it. But once I set a morning routine and started following it, I could easily feel the change in my mindset. It is also suggested to set an unwinding routine before going to sleep at night instead of using your phone. Reading a book is one of the effective ways to unwind one’s day before sleep.
Since the beginning of April this year, I have been trying to form a new routine that would allow me to decrease my screen time significantly while also not missing out on important connections I have made online. I have tried to do this so many times over the past few months and have failed at it. However, we should not give up and always be ready to give it another try and another try. My morning routine now involves waking up, refreshing, doing stretches/workouts, and completing my Spanish Duolingo lessons before checking any other apps so that it sets my day to start positively. This has impacted me in a good way and I always end up with the feeling of wanting to do more throughout the day. I have been using detox apps (free) that lock the selected apps for a set time so that I can be more in the present and do the tasks that I always intend to do. Using detox apps is not a necessity; however, it has been helping me so much for the past month and I finally feel like I am in control of my life and time. Surprisingly, this entire change in my routine and way of living has actually helped me to fix my sleep cycle. I have been sleeping earlier than I usually do and I find myself waking up at the right time in the morning even without the alarm. Instead of using my phone a lot, I went back to my habit of reading books and writing poems whenever I felt like it. I have also changed the type of content I engage with when I use social media which in turn reduced the negative impact created through it.
In a world where algorithm controls us, we have forgotten the art of being in the present. Going on a walk and feeling the air touching your face, observing the things around you, looking at the sky, looking at the way leaves move, and feeling your feet touching the ground is one way to experience the relief and the joy of living in the moment. Meditation has helped me to be mindful of the present and to focus on my breathing reminding me that it’s necessary to catch a breath in this fast-paced world. Going out the balcony and looking around or just letting sunlight touch you would provide a way to feel our existence and a shift in mindset to focus more on things that matter the most.
Positive thinking is not my forte and I have realized that negative self-talk is only leading me to more mental burden. Changing this internal wiring is so hard and it is not something one can achieve in a go. However, I have been consuming more positive content by actively looking for them and engaging in accounts that promote them, speaking positively on top of my negative voice, and being more thankful for the things and people I appreciate in my life.
We all know that life is short, and time flies. If you find yourself getting negatively affected by screen time, or social media consumption, take time to reflect on why you are feeling like that, try to come up with ways you can cope with it healthily or change it, and try not to blame yourself for any of this. This is a digital world and the algorithms are made in a way to drag us inside the maze. We cannot magically control it and reduce it significantly. However, we all can learn at our own pace and find our own ways to overcome it, use it in a healthy way, and live in the present.
I highly recommend you all to check out these three major sources that might help you understand the effect of increased screen time and a good morning routine:
Feel free to comment about your screen time, a good morning/night routine, and your thoughts on this. I have spent a good amount of hours researching and writing this article, so now I am going for a walk. Take care, everyone. Hope this week is treating you well.
Bi-weekly updates:
Completed reading “Eat that Frog!” a few days back. It was a good read and I think I read it just in time since I was thinking about my productivity and how to improve it. This book somehow helped me to shift my mindset and created a positive impact on my lifestyle.
I am currently reading: “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini
Watch list:
Gossip Girl - “3 words. 8 letters. Say it, and I am yours.” Season 2 had me in a chokehold because Blair and Chuck were being, you know, Blair and Chuck. Loved the second season even more because *drumrolls* Lily and Rufus got together, yayyy! Currently watching season 3.
Heartbreak High - Completed both seasons and I love it so much! Darren and Ca$h are such cuties.
Rewatched A Silent Voice with my brother and cried my eyes out. This is my favorite anime film of all time. I highly recommend this one although I want to gatekeep this so much.
Other than these, I watch One Piece anime randomly whenever I want to take a 30-minute break from my activities.
A small, kind reminder for you all to check trigger warnings before you watch or read anything I talk about here.
In my last post, I talked about my screen time being extremely high. I am glad to say that I have reduced it so much in the past few weeks. Of course, some days I gave in to my old habits a bit. Progress isn’t always linear, right? And overall, it has reduced by so many hours and I feel very positive about it.
Yuvan Shankar Raja - you save my life!
I have been trying to pick up the habit of gratitude journaling these past few days. I will let you all know how this goes in a future blog post.
Hi, Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. Please do not hesitate to email me back or reach out to me to talk about this, provide feedback, send recommendations, or just talk about how you have been doing in general. Sending tons of love and positivity your way! Please share with a friend or someone you know. Your support means the world to me!
Leaving with a cat meme as always…
See you all in two weeks!
Love, Siya.
Beautifully penned ❤️
I've been ignoring my screen time problem for a while now. My phone provides a weekly notification about screen time every Monday and I regularly swipe it away, I'm too afraid of looking at it. I'll take your newsletter as *the sign* to finally address this issue and start mending my ways a bit. Last week my average screen time was almost 4 hours a day (with peaks of 6 hours!) and thanks to you I noticed that I have the bad habit of checking the phone as soon as I wake up and using it until late at night. I'll try to follow your advice and see if the methods you use are good for me too! Thank you very much 😊 🙏❤️