When you think back on your favorite memories, how many of them involve a television, tablet, or phone? Probably very few (if any) screens show up in the most joyful moments of your life. Yet our lives are too often consumed by screen time—we’re surrounded! It stands to reason that figuring out how to reduce screen time as adults is essential to getting the most out of life.
Screens parade idyllic images in front of us via social media, television shows, movies, and broadcasts. And as technology advances, most people find it harder and harder to escape its allure.
If you’ve reached your wits’ end with screen time, you’re not alone! Adults across the globe are realizing just how much screens interfere with their authentic experiences of the world. If you want to get off of the hypnotic merry-go-round that is “screens,” you’re in the right place!
Why Should We Learn How to Reduce Your Screen Time as Adults?
Figuring out how to reduce screen time is crucial for adults who want to live a free, positive, and genuine life. But it’s not easy to break the habits many of us have been building since our adolescence (if not before).
The first step to adopting a new lifestyle is acknowledging why your existing habits are holding you back! Here are three concrete reasons why adults need to look away from their screens and start living life to the fullest.
Time Online Prevents Us From Building Real-Life Connections
We’ve all seen it: couples in a restaurant completely ignoring each other to scroll through their phones. In a fit of denial, you might insist that would never be you. In all likelihood, you (and your inner circle of loved ones) probably make a concerted effort to look each other in the eyes and exchange genuine conversations. But is it enough?
Many of us grow tired when we socialize, and glancing down at our phones is an easy escape from the real world. We all—in spite of the promises we make to ourselves—use our phones for a break now and then. (It’s okay to admit guilt on this one – I’ve done it, too.)
While it may seem like you’ve hidden this successfully (sneaked under the radar), the reality is that it doesn’t matter whether or not you’ve been “caught!” What matters is this: every second spent looking at your phone is one that could have been spent sharing an intimate moment with another person.
Think about smiles, waves, side-glances, baby coos, and pet snuggles. How many of each have you missed because you were caught up in a 2D world? To push further, what deficits may have developed that are affecting your own social-emotional health?
Your phone shouldn’t be getting more of your social energy than the humans in your life!
Related: 10 Best Daily Habits to Help You Start Living More Intentionally
Too Much Screen Time Has a Serious Impact On Your Mental Health
I once completely missed a portion of conversation where my friend shared the death of a loved one. My phone beeped in my pocket, drawing my attention right to it. I never even unlocked the screen—I just remember a switch going off in my brain, like, “Oh, maybe someone needs me on this.”
My subconscious reasoning (and hypnotic conditioning) caused me to miss out on the person needing me right in front of my face. The real, flesh-and-blood human being was left feeling awkward and even more depressed than before they sought out my comfort.
I really dropped the ball—and I blame my former addiction to the screen.
As much as it may seem our technology fills the need for socialization and connection, that’s how much damage it’s actually causing. I hope that hindsight on past mistakes (like the story I’ve just shared) will help deter your phone usage in the future!
Deep down inside, our biology begins to respond negatively to the endless reel of ideal figures, perfect skin filters, hidden agendas, and scripted lines on our screens.
The result of too much screen time? Depression. Anxiety. And an overall bad attitude.
Excessive Screen Time Overstimulates Your Brain
People often take to screens when other things (big and small) are happening around them. You often think you’ll only look for a second, until one notification after the next sucks your attention from the room you’re standing in.
Food burns. Kid kicks a soccer goal. Friend shares an important story. Multitasking on the screen takes away from all of those unpredictable moments that really require your full presence.
The human brain isn’t designed to multitask like this! Ideally, you want checking your phone to happen in isolation (and the same goes for surfing your laptop and watching TV ). It’s not uncommon to struggle with giving someone or something your undivided attention when you’re already in the middle of screen time.
Think about how that feels on the receiving end: when someone you care about is staring at their phone or some other screen as you’re trying to talk to them about something you care about. Most would agree it’s infuriating—even insulting.
Our brains are tired of the juggle struggle! We owe it to ourselves (and the precious people or tasks we’ve been neglecting) to figure out how to reduce screen time as adults.
How to Reduce Screen Time As Adults
If there’s a will, there’s a way! Once you realize that you need time away from your technology, solutions become more accessible.
I’m just shy of a dozen ideas for how to reduce screen time in adults. Have a slow read, then take some time to build a strategy. You may even want to bulk up your toolkit with some of your own ideas to cut back on cyberloafing!
Start By Tracking Your Screen Time
Even if you realize that your screen time is a problem, you may not realize how bad the problem is. Exact solutions become more apparent when you understand the gravity of the situation.
To start conquering tech time, you need to collect data on how much time you actually spend on screens. You also need to figure out which screens plague you the most often, and for which activities.
You’ll probably be shocked by the numbers! Those minutes scrolling through your phone every time you microwave a snack, use the bathroom, or stall in your parked car really add up.
Tracking your phone metrics isn’t difficult. You can easily use time-tracking apps to help you keep a running record.
Plus, outsourcing to an app will help you ignore the fact that you’re tracking in the first week or so to ensure that your data is coming through authentically! If you want real solutions, you have to see the real problem through and through.
Go Grayscale
You may not realize it, but what makes your phone so enticing in the first place is a collection of micro things—including color. Color sends satisfactory signals from your eyes to your brain that keep you coming back for more.
When I think about the accounts I follow on social media, I can immediately visualize outfits, shoes, and makeup decisions. The colors of each have (apparently) left a deep impression in my mind, so I can almost see the details of each when I shut my eyes, without pulling out my phone.
Such skills may serve me well as I reduce my screen time and focus more of my energy on other more wholesome, productive pastimes!
To dull the draw of your phone, lose some of what makes it so enticing to use. Ditch colors for grayscale! It’s a great way to reveal your old phone habits for the disappointing distractions they really are.
The option to go gray is right in your phone’s settings. Easy peasy.
Clean Up Your Apps and Notifications
When exploring how to reduce screen time in adults, it helps to think about which apps and notifications you actually need. You’ll probably find that most of your phone features are unimportant—grade A distractions, if you will.
Sometimes I literally think to myself, “This is so ridiculous; your phone vibrated one time to alert you about a new TikTok and you act like the president’s calling!”
It’s important to remember that apps make money each and every time you use them. Of course they’re going to harass you with menial notifications and steal your time.
The fix is simple: take their voices away. Delete unnecessary apps entirely or silence their notifications in your settings to help soften the allure of constant screen time.
Receiving fewer notifications makes it easier to remain present throughout the day.
Take Regular Screen Breaks While Working
Work is one facet of life that can truly insist your attention stay on the screen. But even screen-reliant roles leave room for reality breaks. Be sure to take them whenever you can in an effort to reduce your overall screen time.
It helps to set up screen time intervals for computer- or phone-based jobs. For example, after 45 minutes of work, allow yourself fifteen minutes of break time (and I don’t mean to peruse social media or check your personal emails).
Get up from your desk every once in a while! Walk away from the luminescent boxes (those hypnotic screens, of course) and into the actual sunlight, even if only for a moment.
Regular screen-breaks have been proven to boost energy and keep musculoskeletal problems (due to prolonged sitting and staring) at bay. So you’ll never be disappointed in your decision to get up and go out for a few minutes. But you may be disappointed when you don’t take the chance.
Create Phone-Free Zones at Home
Remember how phone calls worked in the 1990s? People would dial one another from their kitchens (where their phones lived full-time) and actually talk to one another. When the conversation was over, phones would return to their charging stations and people would go about their lives phone-free.
Text messages, emails, and social media are recent societal obstacles! Thanks to the “miracle” of portable smartphones, now we can never overcome (or escape) them.
The solution to this conundrum is to design boundaries where none actually exist anymore. When you walk into your home, practice “hanging up” your phone in a designated area. Allow yourself to check it during designated times and respond to specific ringtones or notification signals (as you would an old-school telephone).
If a phone hub seems impossible for you or your current lifestyle, try drawing the line in a few different places:
- At the dinner table
- Whenever two or more people are in a room together
- When otherwise trying to accomplish other things
These new rules will eventually become like second nature to you! (Not to mention, a welcome relief from the 24/7 hypnosis you’ve been grappling with.) Bonus points if your screen time maintenance habits rub off on your family members.
Stop Using Your Phone as an Alarm
I’ve been relying on my phone as an alarm clock for over a decade now! It wasn’t until my father recommended I try a free-standing alarm clock that I made the trade up.
And I phrase it that way (as a trade UP) for two reasons: Firstly, my new alarm clock fits the design set up in my bedroom! (Such a minor detail brings me joy during a slow take-in-my-surroundings sort of day.) Secondly, answering to my “just an” alarm clock frees me of the obligation to check notifications, answer midnight text messages, or scroll through social media.
Once I removed the need for my phone as my wakeup alarm, I eventually stopped carrying it into my bedroom at all. Free from screens, I now fall asleep after journaling and reading a few pages of a good book.
I highly recommend you do the same!
Related: 10 Easy Steps to Create Your Perfect Slow Morning Routine
Start a Meditating Practice
It’s a challenge to transition from someone who grabs their phone in the wake of an awkward silence, to someone who simply exists in the experience. A great strategy for how to reduce screen time as adults is to lean into meditation.
Learn to be comfortable with stillness.
Meditation is a very common mindfulness practice. You can educate yourself on the tradition of meditation by joining a local class or researching virtually (during your allotted, controlled screen time, of course)!
Calm is a great online resource to help you become well-versed in meditation and other wellness techniques. They can help you target sleep issues, wellness issues, and help you break the hold of bad habits—like excessive screen time.
Remember, trying to fill every second of space during the day is a sign of anxiety. We’re often so eager to override silence that we miss out on it! But when you get the hang of meditation, you can use it to do even more than embrace silence, like cope with difficult feelings or think through particular challenges.
Avoid Having Working Lunches as Often as Possible
Lunch behind a screen (when you’re already working behind a screen most of the day) is not a good plan. Yet so many people talk themselves into it every single day.
Some people are workaholics—never wanting to step away from their current tasks! Others (I hate to say it) are drawn to eating where they work because they get restless after stepping away from their work screens!
Does any of that sound familiar?
When considering how to reduce screen time in adults, look no further than your own cell phone failsafes. In other words, lunch is one of those times during the day when you loaf behind a screen because it’s easier than coming up with something else to do.
Don’t succumb to it, friends. Take two or three minutes now to brainstorm a few screen-free places and activities to tackle on your lunch break. Maybe head outside for a walk, break into a good book, or put the sacred screen to your ear (you know… like an actual phone!) and call your grandma.
Whatever you do, don’t work while you eat! Work tasks don’t justify extra time behind the computer. Your job will be there when you’re through nourishing your body and rebooting your mind in another location.
Switch Out Screen Time for Reading Time
A good ol’ swap works for adults exploring how to reduce screen time! Just as people trying to quit smoking turn to chewing gum to preoccupy themselves, you can reach for a good book every time you get the urge to scroll through your phone.
It’s just as easy to carry a book around as it is your cell phone. Even if you only succeed once out of every three times you need a “distraction,” you’re sure to decrease your screen time a bit if you have a book on hand.
But if towing a book around doesn’t resonate with you yet, consider making the swap “site” specific:
- Have a bathroom book
- Read on mass transit
- Grab a book or magazine before bed
- Start your day with a few pages
You’ll start to look forward to your daily reads in no time. The goal of a habit swap is always to trade for something better—switch the poor habit for one that’s good for you.
Not only are good books informative, interesting, and more peaceful than your ever-changing phone, but scientifically speaking, they exercise a different part of the brain than processing anything on a screen does.
I’m talking about a real page-turning book—not an e-reader! (That’s just another screen distracting you from the real world). Enjoy the smell, feel, and weight of an actual book. Nothing else compares!
Be Intentional with Your Screen Time
Let this strategy for how to reduce screen time in adults be a breath of relief. I’m not suggesting you say goodbye to cyberloafing forever, fam. Screen time isn’t all bad when used in moderation, so have a plan for when and how you use your technology.
My family and I have a screen night every Friday! The end of the week is the perfect time to turn our brains off and unwind. Sometimes we watch a movie together, but sometimes we take 30 minutes separately to do whatever we want to do on social media.
If you go this route, don’t overestimate your ability to start and stop screen time (especially if you’re trying to synchronize your break with other people). Using a timer is your best bet!
Make a strategic announcement before you even touch your screen. Say, “I’m zoning out for XX minutes… and when the timer goes off I’m done!” This way, not only can you hold yourself accountable, your loved ones can listen for the sacred ringing of your alarm clock and ease the phone from your hands when it’s time.
Don’t Take as Many Pictures
For past generations, photographs were symbolic of something extraordinary—capturing the most special days. Now taking pictures (and sharing them right away) is the norm. But many agree that it actually feels more surreal, authentic, and “special” when you experience big moments without taking pictures.
If you haven’t experienced this flip-flop phenomenon yet, you’re missing out. Try being the only one at the party who never touches their phone, or try actually watching the bride walk down the aisle with your own eyes (let the professional photographer capture what needs to be captured). Soak in your child’s last day of school or simply play fetch with your dog (not for social media’s sake).
When you push the phone away, special moments become sacred for a different reason. They’re more genuine, and can live forever in your very capable memory!
Alternatively, you can journal big memories or schedule a photoshoot when the commotion dies down. Whatever you decide, try to experience more with your hands off your phone.
The journey to uncover how to reduce screen time in adults is completely worthwhile. For thousands of years, human beings have thrived without the obstacles of smartphones, tablets, computers, or televisions. I refuse to believe that independent thinking and authentic experiences end with us!
We can overcome screen temptation by supporting one another and making a purposeful effort to change. A more wholesome lifestyle is waiting for you when you look beyond the screens.
