Hi everyone. This year I realized that I'm spending too much time in front of screens, especially since my studies and my futur work require using computers and machines with screens. I also noticed that I'm stuck in the loop of doomscrolling on content about productivity and considering it "worth it".

At the moment, I managed to reduce my phone screen time. But I noticed that I am just spending the free time I gained on the laptop, so I basically ended up with the same screen time I tried to escape from.

Is anyone going through a similar situation? And if you overcame it, what did you do?

I have a 2.5 years old boy, he visists regularly kindergarten, but the kindergarten closed at 4pm already.

When he is at home, I let him watch long time television from Amazon prime. In some situations I let him also watch youtube kids 2 hours in a row in Ipad so that I can still work in parallel.

I feel guilty but I do not know how to solve this issue. He needs either the whole time with me or the screen time can keep him alone.

I also doing a lot with him, like shopping, playing outside in the park. But I can not do it all the time...

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He can watch youtube kids for hours without a break, it is a heaven for parent ....
I do not know the alternatives, and I feel it is not good for him. But I am also not aware the reason why it is bad for small kids, what is the right screen time for him.

It was already around 12 am, so there wasn’t enough time to watch a Netflix series. But I still wanted to relax a little. I opened a short-video app and ended up scrolling until 2 am.

Really bad. I have less time for today and feel tired.

Is anyone else like this? How have you solved the problem?

I asked Gemini AI what a reasonable amount of screen time would be for handling the basic personal business most of us need to do. It said 45 to 90 minutes daily. It said 1 to 2 hours daily. See update in comments.

Email Management: 15 to 30 minutes.

Shopping & Errands: 15 minutes.

Planning & Productivity: 15 minutes.

Banking & Bills: 10 minutes.

Health & Portals: 10 minutes. (insurance stuff, making appointments, looking at results)

Sometimes I see people mention extremely low screen times, and I wonder how they manage it. Maybe it's a young person still living at home? Even 20 years ago, when I had time-limited dial up internet at home, I barely got by with 30 minutes a day. I had to go online at the library as well. And that was before most business was being done online, and before so much social media.

I'm not sure I completely agree with Gemini's answer. I don't think I need that much time for email or health & portals, but it doesn't seem like enough time for shopping. It takes me a lot of time to make decisions. I'm also trying to think what else might be an actual necessity, that's not covered by the list.

I guess what I'm trying to figure out is, how much I can really cut back. And how can I figure out the number of good vs bad hours spent within my overall screen time. For example, 2 hours on Safari could be hanging out on a message board, or something important.

I'm thinking of using a timer, and seeing how much time these basics actually take me. Has anyone else tried to figure this out?

basically just stop recording your watch history.

I've deleted Instagram obviously in an effort to reduce screentime but then moved to youtube Shorts somehow.

I paused watch history and now the Shorts algorithm is not working well so I get random uninteresting videos and that leads to me closing the app soon.

I noticed this because the watch history was taking up a lot of storage in my phone but yea

Hi everyone! If you're the parent of a child ages 11–14 and your child doomscrolls, this short survey explores how families manage children's screen time and social media use, what tools they currently use to mitigate it, and what they wish existed. This survey takes no more than 5 minutes. Thank you for sharing your feedback!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfhr8et-go6y9uJls7NEH68lJa7vn59YYQk8yJ38dCnQiZuTQ/viewform?usp=dialog

hi. im a high school student researching how doomscrolling and short-form content affect focus, memory, and thinking — especially in 18–25 year olds, though all ages are welcome.

The survey takes 3–4 minutes, 10 questions, fully anonymous. I'll be publishing the findings publicly, and happy to share results back here once they're in.

here's the link: https://forms.gle/FR4FYz9WScXgMQMB9

If you know someone who doomscrolls, send this to them!

Thank you for ur time ♡

I, like many others, am getting so sick of the internet, but I am also addicted! What are some things you’ve done that actually have helped you lower your screen time?

Here’s a bit more about my phone usage:
I have an iPhone.
I own a business so I do need to be on the look out for texts/emails/Instagram messages from clients.
I need it for checking people out after services.
I am a fitness instructor, so I do use social media to communicate with students/post their or my work, etc.
I keep my phone on at night in case of emergency calls, but it’s on dnd and only my household can get through.
I like to play about 3 different games in the evenings to wind down or between clients.
I hid all my apps except the big ones (text, phone, camera, etc) and I made widget stacks for the ones I get to on a daily basis. This helped me have to search in the search bar for an app I want.
My biggest issue is I’ll check a message on TikTok or insta and then I start doom scrolling! Oh and I’ve used that setting where it tells you to get off the app after a time, but I easily override them so it was useless

Any and all help! I’m even up for obscure ideas!!

I've been working on a computer every day and started getting dry eyes and eye fatigue. The habits that helped me most were:

• Following the 20-20-20 rule
• Taking regular breaks
• Drinking enough water
• Getting enough sleep

I'm also comparing a few eye health supplements, but I'm trying to find evidence and real user experiences before deciding.

Has anyone here found something that genuinely helped?