I wish time travel were real. If it were, I’d go back to 2006 – the year before the release of the first iPhone. A time when doomscrolling didn’t exist, and the thought of a phone call didn’t cause me a rush of anxiety.
Many Americans agree. On social media, some are already labeling 2026 “the age of analog”, swapping Spotify for a record player and a smartphone lens for a film camera.
Plenty of advice already exists out there on how to reduce screen time. But we were on the hunt for unique tips that went beyond silencing phone notifications or setting time limits.
I asked for advice from a slew of experts who study addiction and digital detoxing and have written bestselling books on managing screen time (we’ve shared them in a reading list below). From putting a rubber band around your phone to writing a breakup letter to it, below are 15 realistic strategies that might actually help cut down on scrolling.
If you’re feeling very brave, make sure to read our last (and most vulnerable) tip. Then, at the very end, get some inspiration for screen-free activities from the Filter team.
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First, the best books on how to reduce screen time
Power On: Managing Screen Time to Benefit the Whole Family, by Ash Brandin
Power On: Managing Screen Time to Benefit the Whole Family, by Ash Brandin
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Dopamine Nation, by Dr Anna Lembke
Dopamine Nation, by Dr Anna Lembke
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The Official Dopamine Nation Workbook, by Dr Anna Lembke
The Official Dopamine Nation Workbook, by Dr Anna Lembke
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How to Break Up With Your Phone, by Catherine Price
How to Break Up With Your Phone, by Catherine Price
The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World, by Adam Gazzaley and Dr Larry Rosen
The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World, by Adam Gazzaley and Dr Larry Rosen
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Top 15 tips to actually reduce your screen time
Find out when you’re using your phone
Before doing anything, view how much you’re currently averaging in your smartphone’s stats.
It also helps to become mindful of when you choose to pick up your phone – and what you’re feeling at the time. Bored? Stressed? “Sometimes it just helps me to ask: what need is this meeting? What is it I’m seeking? What am I trying to get from this?” said Ash Brandin, an educator and author of Power On.
Put a rubber band around your phone
You can also try a physical reminder to pause. “One thing I often suggest is that you put a rubber band or a hair tie around your phone for a couple of days,” said health journalist Catherine Price, the author of How to Break Up With Your Phone and The Power of Fun: “When you reach for your phone on autopilot, you think: why is that on my phone?”
Don’t set app time limits
You could set a time limit for using an app, but that often doesn’t work – and can even increase your screen time, according to a study conducted by Dr Jordan Etkin, a Duke University professor who researches how people set goals. Instead, she recommended setting “hard limits”, which means a limit that can’t be changed once set.
Choose app-blocking tools carefully
To set a “hard limit”, Price suggested apps such as Opal and Freedom, which allow you to put apps and websites on a “block list” and schedule focus sessions. Freedom (which offers a free trial) also lets you sync multiple devices and offers a “locked” mode to help you resist ending a session early.
Freedom
This turns your phone into “a tool that helps you do the things you want to do, that doesn’t suck away at your life”, she said. Price is also a fan of Brick, a physical tool that locks you out of distracting apps of your choosing until you use your phone to unlock them.
Brick
Keep it out of sight at work
If the mere sight of your phone leaves you with the urge to scroll, try putting it somewhere that makes you have to look for it.
“If you’re at work and you want to focus, keep your phone in your bag or in your jacket,” said Dr Kostadin Kushlev, who has researched the benefits of “digital detoxing” at Georgetown University.
Use a physical alarm clock
At night, Price recommended leaving your phone outside of your bedroom and swapping your smartphone’s alarm for a physical alarm clock. (Price’s husband uses this retro table clock.) Otherwise, after seeing all your notifications, “you’re guaranteed that you’re going to start your day on someone else’s terms”, she said.
Find joy (or distraction) in a screen-free activity
If you find yourself doomscrolling in your free time, try taking up a screen-free activity or hobby.
“Make it less about trying to cut back and more about filling our lives with things that we enjoy,” said Price, who enjoys jamming out on the drums in her spare time.
If you aren’t sure where to start, Brandin advised figuring out what purpose your phone is fulfilling and translating it to offline hobbies. For instance, if you resort to task-oriented games such as Candy Crush for a mindless distraction, try a crochet kit.
Make your phone harder to use
It can feel too easy to pick up your phone when you have a free second.
To make it less convenient to scroll, offload tempting apps and power your phone off between uses, advised Dr Anna Lembke, author of Dopamine Nation.
Use your laptop instead
If you’re feeling brave, you can take a page from Lembke, who leaves her house without her phone and keeps any necessary apps on her laptop, “so that it’s not quite so accessible and quite so mobile”.
Make your phone boring
Lembke advised turning on “grayscale” mode in your phone’s display settings, which “is a good way to make it less potent”. If you’re worried that you won’t remember how to switch it back to color, Price has shared how to create an accessibility shortcut that allows you to easily toggle between the two modes.
Make your apps boring
You can also try decreasing your algorithm’s power. If you often fall down YouTube rabbit holes, turn off its “recommendations” feature. That way, you have to manually search for every new video, Lembke said.
Write a breakup letter to your phone
If you need a physical reminder of why you’d like to make a change to your screen time, Price advises you to write a “breakup” letter to your phone.
“Truly think about your phone as a partner in a relationship. What do you love about it, but what’s not working? How has it helped you? How is it hurting you?” Price said.
Take short, intentional screen breaks
Many of the experts advised taking planned time away from your phone.
Dr Larry Rosen, co-author of The Distracted Mind and a research psychologist, recommended “tech breaks”, consisting of two minutes of screen time, followed by 15 to 30 minutes of focused, distraction-free work. “Then you’re controlling the break,” he said.
Take a long break
If you’re up for a challenge, you can also try taking an extended break. “You do feel better,” Lembke said. It also forces you to connect with people in your life, she said: “In the face of boredom and discomfort, people typically reach out to other people.”
Swap phones with someone you trust
If you don’t want to go without a smartphone completely, try swapping with a loved one.
On the weekends, Etkin, the Duke professor, trades phones with her partner. “That way, we can get ahold of each other if we need to, and we could check something if we need to. But we can’t be on our own media streams,” she said.
Looking for more tips? Consider subscribing to the Guardian’s Reclaim your brain newsletter for more ways to reduce your screen time in 2026.
What the Filter US editors do instead of doomscrolling
Recently, I’ve been trying a whole slew of hobbies to replace scrolling on TikTok. A few of my favorites are watercoloring and reading on my Kindle. And despite the chilly weather, I love going for a run. I also asked my Filter colleagues about screen-free things they liked to do, and here’s what they said.
Nick Mokey, Filter editor: Now that I work from home, I actually miss the days of commuting into an office by bike every day, and I find myself inventing excuses to run errands on two wheels: buying groceries, getting a haircut, meeting friends for a beer.
I’ve never arrived anywhere in a worse mood after biking there, and when I catch clear skies in the winter, a bike commute can become the highlight of an otherwise mundane day. With both no screen and no earbuds for safety, it’s a total disconnect from all things digital.
Karen Yuan, Filter US commissioning editor: Is it a cop-out to say my favorite screen-free activity is taking a walk? Especially very long walks.
A couple years ago, I fell in love with solo backpacking, and since then I’ve hiked through forests and dirt roads in Spain, France and Japan with my trusty Osprey Mira 32L. I love taking these walking tours of new places because they force me to just take in and enjoy what’s around me.
And because I can’t always up and leave my everyday life, I try to keep that mindset at home, too – by taking long evening walks around my Brooklyn neighborhood that help me view all my familiar sights anew.
