Written By – Ananya, Batch of 2029
Caricature By – Samim, Batch of 2029
Are you someone who’s troubled by their 15+ hours of screen time? Have you ever lost entire evenings to your For-You-Page? Does your dominant thumb engage in more cardio than the rest of your body? If you responded with a “yes” to even one of these questions (and I wholeheartedly trust that you did), then you may be in dire need of curing your doomscrolling addiction.
Now, how does one stop abusing this lethal drug conceived by the devil himself? Well, lucky for you, l have prepared a foolproof guide that will help you kick this Satanic habit once and for all. Lest you write me off as facetious, the instructions given below are tried and tested by yours truly with a 100% success rate (please don’t check my screen time).
Get in loser, we’re going to Instagram rehab.
1. Hermetically seal your phone in a plastic bag in hopes that it suffocates to death or merely switch it off whilst you do literally anything else that doesn’t involve your phone. And I mean it, literally anything else. Stare at the ceiling for all I care, it offers the same lack of productivity that doomscrolling does but damages your brain a bajillion times less. And who knows, maybe an original thought might manifest itself out of that void between your ears.
2. Replace your doomscrolling urge with some good ol’ fashioned physical exercise. Now this doesn’t mean you need to transmogrify into some protein-maxxing gym rat dudebro (God knows we have far too many of those). Simply go on a leisurely stroll or channel your inner King Julien and move it.
3. Get off the couch and drag your fragile frame to Chandni Chowk to acquire a state-of-the-art flip phone! Bedazzle that pink Samsung with enough rhinestones to fill the Instagram reels shaped void in your heart.
4. Open your phone settings and turn those Instagram notifications off. These notifications will only tempt you to rejoin the dark side, my young Padawan. And I assure you, your friends will survive if you don’t react to their reels with the state-mandated crying emoji for a day or two.
5. Replace your doomscrolling addiction with something that is far more insidious and all-consuming (No, I am not talking about developing a serious drinking problem). Revisit the hobbies you had before reels smothered your attention span, or take up a new one, for instance, reading. P.S. If the last book you read was Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules in 6th grade, I am seriously concerned for you. Please hit up a bookstore ASAP and get your paws on some Jane Austen while you’re at it.
6. Do not under any circumstances, start your mornings with Instagram reels because believe it or not, mornings set the tone for the day. You do not need to watch a fourteen-year-old’s fit check after being awake for approximately 12 seconds, and you surely do not need to comment ‘link’ under every earring clip-on ad you come across while brushing your teeth. Instead, embody the spirit of a Victorian child and wake up how God intended: confused, miserable, and in desperate need of nourishment.
7. Your phone is not surgically embedded into your hand (it may as well be, at this point), so stop taking it with you everywhere because that little screen has seen some questionable things. With the merciful exception of showering, I doubt you’ve ever graced the confines of your bathroom without your eyes glued to your phone.
8. Refrain from the use of reels as a coping mechanism by directing that energy towards the less pleasant task of fixing your life. Might I suggest therapy, with a side of journaling? (And no, ChatGPT-ing every problem is not therapy).
9. Move away from the big city for a bit to a place without an internet connection and attempt living life as a reclusive Tibetan monk who thinks that Dua Lipa is the name of a rare incurable disease. If you really wanna take it to the next level, actually move to Tibet and join a rustic monastery high up in the mountains. As a matter of fact, I happen to be writing this paragraph from one such Tibetan monastery as we speak.
10. Frequent places that actively restrict you from using your phone. Go swimming, or watch a stand-up show IRL. Or catch the afternoon matinée at the nearest cinema and spend the rest of your day watching YouTube videos on what exactly the ending of that A24 film was supposed to mean.
11. Instead of arguing with wildly problematic strangers in the comment sections of wildly unproblematic reels, consider socialising with people in real life. Yes, you’ll have to engage in futile small talk and endure awkward silences, but at least they won’t have the option of replying with Michael Scott GIFs when you call them out on their transphobic opinions.
12. Stop being bamboozled by the ostentatious world of reels and go find some semblance of purpose in this meaningless existence. As for what that purpose might be, everyone from Nietzsche to your favourite Disney princess has spent centuries pondering this very question with remarkably little success. But hey, maybe you might finally crack the code. After all, what do any of those so-called “genius” philosophers have on you?
Doomscrolling may be an evil, but it sure is a necessary one if you don’t want to end up persona non grata and be shunned by society for several years to come. So, like, you could….maybe….watch a couple of reels every once in a while? But only so that you can stay in the loop of all that is groovy at the moment (editor’s note: given the use of that word, it might be the writer that is severely out of the loop).
Now does that mean that everything you just read meant diddly-squat? Possibly. But if you somehow managed to take away even a morsel of useful advice, I’d call that a massive win. And if you learnt absolute zilch and this whole thing was just a waste of your time, then to that I say, your fault for trusting a chronically online teenager who still needs to do that little hand thing to tell right from left.