Within minutes of waking up, I can’t help but reach for it. The iPhone on my nightstand has a gravitational pull.
I swipe through my Instagram feed before my eyes have even adjusted to daylight. Of course, there is nothing urgent in this sea of vacation pictures, pregnancy announcements, adorable dog videos, and ads for products I Googled the day before.
Yet I can’t stop scrolling.
Last month, I became hyperaware of my dependence on this unhealthy habit when I deleted Instagram — my millennial social media of choice — for two weeks. It was for “work purposes,” I told myself, and would inform this story about how much time and money some consumers have spent trying to pull themselves from their screens.
I ended up deleting Facebook, too, after a day spent filling Instagram’s absence with rambling posts from neighborhood groups.
After my experiment, I see why people are willing to pay to unplug from social media.
Chen Wang, an associate professor of marketing at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business, said she gets it, too. Not only because she observes the habits of her Gen-Z students, but also because she researches consumer technology and self-regulation.
The human-smartphone relationship, Wang said, has become “a paradox.”
“It makes our life so convenient. We can do almost everything on our phone,” Wang said. “At the same time, we’re also wishing we could use it less.”
Why some pay to unplug
As consumers have become increasingly aware of how social media and screen time affects their mental health, a cottage industry of social-media-detox businesses has emerged.
There’s the Brick, a $59 device that blocks distracting apps with the tap of your phone — and requires another tap to unblock. There are $50 “phone beds,” popularized by media mogul Arianna Huffington, that you can tuck your device into at night, ideally somewhere outside your bedroom, to discourage horizontal scrolling.
And an array of phone applications — ironically — block other apps. Some of those app-blockers are free. Others offer paid tiers from $40 to $100 a year.
Others struggling with social media overuse have spent hundreds of dollars on wellness retreats, where screen time is limited. In May, Cristen DeDomenico, a Philly-based bartender and therapist-in-training, spent about $1,300 to attend a weeklong retreat at the Kripalu center in Massachusetts.
“It definitely involved turning off and stepping away” from the digital world, said DeDomenico, 35, who felt less tempted to scroll social media in the retreat environment. “No one else was on their phone, so you didn’t feel the urge to be on yours.”
» READ MORE: Suburban parents say they’ve been sucked into smartphone ‘whirlpool.’ Now, they want the devices out of schools.
Closer to home, for a nominal fee, community leaders and small-business owners around the Philly area have been organizing social gatherings and workshops where attendees have to put their phones away.
Glenside educator Charlie Price started her digital-detox and wellness business, Time and Space, during the pandemic, when she noticed her own bad phone habits while stuck at home. Price, 36, said she’d often scroll Instagram for more than 30 minutes at a time.
Now, Price hosts regular events, including hikes and art workshops, for which people pay between $5 and $25 per person. Attendees abide by an honor system: Keep phones out of sight.
The focus, Price said, is “getting together in person and in nature … getting out IRL,” — in real life, in internet parlance.
What works best for reducing screen time
At its core, the solution to our scrolling problem is free: We all could just turn off, hide, or simply walk away from our devices.
But, given the addictive designs of the social-media platforms on our smartphones, it’s not that simple.
When it comes to cutting back on screen time, Wang, the Drexel professor, said research has found that outside motivation can be more effective than relying on self control. This motivation can come from app-blockers or other strategies, such as changing your phone’s colors to gray-scale, which makes the scroll less appealing.
“At the end of the day, we need some external outsourcing of self-control to help us do better, to curb our temptation,” Wang said.
» READ MORE: Some Philly-area residents yearn for the landline’s return as smartphones dominate
DeDomenico said she learned that when she returned from her retreat. For the first few weeks, she was more present in her daily life, she said, but then old habits crept back in — and her post-work scroll got longer.
I’ve found this, too, since redownloading Instagram. Grabbing my phone to check the weather or pull up a photo can quickly turn into a waste of 15 minutes or more on mindless swiping.
I don’t think going cold turkey is the answer. I do enjoy those adorable dog videos and the funny reels, and the photo dumps from people I haven’t seen since grade school.
After Wang’s reassurance about the effectiveness of external motivators, I’ve been reading more articles about the best app-blockers — and even toying with the idea of investing in one of them.
Peace of mind is probably worth at least $50, right?
Have you reduced your screen time?
Tell us what strategies, apps, resources, or products worked for you. Email consumer reporter Erin McCarthy at emccarthy@inquirer.com.