Most of us were glued to our smartphone screens even before the coronavirus became a worldwide scare. Then the epidemic turned into a pandemic. We were forced to go indoors. That gave us an excuse to spend the lion’s share of our daily time scrolling through our favorite social media platform or watching binge-worthy content on Netflix.
While there’s nothing wrong with this approach as it keeps your mind away from negative thoughts, all of us have heard the adage that excess of everything is bad. Apart from keeping our brains in a tizzy, the light coming out of our gadgets can interfere with our sleeping habits. That means that while we choose to subscribe to technology to overcome one problem, it could introduce us to a lot of others.
With this in mind, let’s take a look at three tips and tricks to cut down on screen time:
Designate social media times
As a mere scroll through the wall (or feed) of your social media account will tell you, these things are inundated with statistics about the pandemic. As long as you aren’t going to organize a public health campaign, you already know most of what you need to know to keep you and your loved ones safe.
For this reason, make sure that you designate time each day for you to browse through your social media feed. I’d recommend that you choose a time near the morning so that by the time you’re ready to go to sleep, all the bad news that you’d most likely read on social media has faded from your memory.
Set up a routine
Make a to-do list of things you plan to do tomorrow before you go to bed today. Make sure that the lion’s share of things you’re planning to get done – as long as they don’t have to do with anything work-related or talking to your loved ones virtually – do not involve your smartphone.
Once you start acting on a routine, you’d soon realize that all the time that you had yesterday to sit in front of the television and listen to dreadful news is no longer there. This absence of news will make you feel calm and less vulnerable to anxiety and depression.
Talk to your loved ones
Bought yourself a foam hand sanitizer dispenser over the internet? Saw an aesthetically appeasing hand sanitizer advertising kiosk? Tell everything you do to your loved ones, as long as they aren’t the ones helping you doing it – as in this case, they’ll just grow bored with your monologue.
Since internet-based voice calling services have made voice calls free, use them to get in touch with the friend you haven’t talked to in a while. Use the time you’re talking to them to walk around your home. This will ensure your fitness while also keeping your eyeballs away from the television screen.