I treat myself like a drug addict

I treat myself like a drug addict. But not with drugs, with my phone.

I have no self-control. I'll often be enjoying a quiet moment reading a book or looking out at a view and suddenly, without even realizing it, I'm clawing for my phone in my pocket to check my Twitter feed.

After listening to this interview with Dr. Anna Lembke, I realized that you can become addicted—in the same sense you would to drugs or alcohol—to anything that stimulates dopamine.

This can be your phone. Chocolate cake. Fizzy water. You name it, if it stimulates dopamine, you're hooped.

In the interview, she goes on to say that the effective treatment protocol for drugs and alcohol (6-8 weeks total abstinence) is the same way to treat things like phone or video game addiction. She talks about "self-binding," the forced removal of the stimuli from your environment.

Don't want to eat chips? Don't keep them in your house.

Well, the same applies to phones. What I ended up doing was going into my iPhone's Screen Time settings, blocking all the distracting stuff that causes me stress or I scroll endlessly, then having my girlfriend set the passcode.

This means that, in order to use email, Twitter, check the news, Reddit, etc, I need to bug my girlfriend for the code.

As Dr. Lembke predicted, the first 6 weeks were tough, but now I don't even miss them. And I prevent myself from going back down the rabbit hole by continuing to keep the aggressive Screen Time enabled.

I've found that my life is much happier without scrolling feeds and current events. I've managed to replace most of my scrolling time with reading books or long-form audio and I haven't found that not having email, news, or social media at close hand has in any way negatively affected me.

You should try it.

Originally published in the You are probably a jerk in some way. issue of Never Enough.