enjoying feeds in moderation
i like feeds. i'm on twitter and instagram reels for ~30 minutes daily with no plans to stop. i know that's a crazy thing to say in 2026 with the big tech surveillance and shortening attention spans and the loneliness crisis and so on, but i'd rather be honest with you and with myself. cute pets, jokes and dumb memes genuinely add a lot of value to my life. i can regularly have a hearty laugh in interstitial times, giving my mind a quick boost of energy before moving on to another task.
i've also gone to great lengths to ensure that the infinite scroll doesn't take over my life, including:
- fully blocking all feeds on my laptops using leechblock (instagram, facebook, reddit)
- adding a 10-second temporary block to feeds that i need to access, but can be time-consuming (linkedin, gmail)
- only allowing feeds in 15-minute increments on my phone
- asking my boyfriend to help keep me accountable (and vice versa)
however, the most important factor by far in reducing my scrolling has been monitoring my mental fatigue. if i scroll for a long time and i can't seem to stop, i know that my mind and body have been exhausted. i went through several years of being addicted to tiktok and reddit for this very reason. now, i try to detect that foggy, cranky mental state and switch to one of these activities instead:
- talk to someone
- walk around
- clean the room
- take deep breaths
- eat something if you're hungry
- drink water if you're thirsty
- cook something nice
i find that i need to do the recovery activity for at least an hour to fully recover, if not more. if i'm sleep-deprived then that recovery time shoots way up, so i try to sleep 7-8 hours every night as well.
the dirtier secret is that i'm much less busy now. i was in college when i scrolled a bunch. with so many deadlines looming every week, i constantly felt overwhelmed and exhausted. my current work life is comparatively chiller, so it's been easier to keep my scrolling habits in check. i'm trying to train myself for when the busier times come back around. i like the cute cats and memes but not nearly as much as i like my life.