Your Digital Environment: How Adjusting Your Screens Can Improve Mental Health

There’s a new kid on the block when it comes to your environment, and that’s what you see, hear and interact with on social media.

Environment, according to Oxford Dictionary, is: “the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates.” And considering most people are spending a minimum of 4 hours daily on their phones, I’d argue it’s become a condition in which we live.

Therefore, we must take care of our digital environment the same way we would with the others.

We wouldn’t choose to live with toxic people, and if our friends upset us every time we saw them, we probably wouldn’t be their friend for much longer, so why do we continuously choose to see and interact with such nonsense on our phones?

You might think that it being on a 6-inch screen changes things and reduces its impact, but I disagree. These are real human beings and real things happening, and that’s exactly how we perceive and feel them.

So seeing such toxicity or negativity in such high quantities on our phones is exactly that. And the only real choice you have to keep your sanity intact is to distance yourself.

This can be done in two ways: 

Algorithm Adjustment

What you see on social media platforms is a lot more customisable than people realise. The algorithm is designed to show you more of the things you’re interested in, and it knows what you’re interested in by how long you watch specific videos, videos you search for, save, like and comment on.

This is why negative content, just like negative media in the news, gets the most coverage, because it sells.

You’re bound to see more shocking, abusive, negative and toxic videos on your feed because that’s the exact sort of content that’s most engaging.

But you’re not doomed. With a conscious effort, you can trick the algorithm into showing you whatever kind of content you want. 

Do this by searching for, watching, and liking the content you want, and clicking “not interested” on the content you don’t. Eventually, the algorithm will learn and adjust.

Unfortunately, though, this will be an ongoing battle, as slowly but surely, more and more of that toxic content will leak back through. And unless you can keep reminding yourself over and over, you’ll probably end up exactly where you began.

You can also replace scrolling with something much better: you can learn a language, solve puzzles and read articles, which are all better than scrolling social media. But again, this will be an ongoing battle, as the dopamine you get from scrolling completely dominates everything else; that’s why they’re so addictive.

This is why, even though changing your algorithm is good, it’s not the best choice for improving your digital environment.

Reducing Screen Time

What’s better than changing what you see? Seeing nothing.

Although it’s probably unlikely that you’re going to stop using social media platforms altogether, it’s still worth putting in the effort to reduce your screen time as much as you can.

4 hours of screen time is still 4 hours away from the real world, regardless of what you choose to see. So, let’s reduce it.

The first and easiest thing you can do is to set limits on specific apps. I’m unsure about other phone types, but Apple has a feature in the settings that allows you to choose the apps you’d like to cut down on and set how long you can use them each day. 

When the time is up, the app will be blocked for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, though, this is way too easy to bypass; you can simply press “ignore limit” and go about your doomscrolling.

So the next thing to do is to download a third-party app, one that does similar things but better. I use Opal, which allows me to block specific apps during specific periods throughout the day. 

Although this can also be bypassed, it creates an extra layer of friction. If you try to go to an app, you’ll have to instead go to Opal itself, wait a couple of seconds while it tells you to breathe in and out, then remove the restriction.

Still easy enough, but you may be surprised to know how powerful a couple of extra seconds can be.

The third thing I’d recommend is a little more hardcore and is similar to the equivalent of going cold turkey, and it’s to set your entire phone to black and white. Yes, that’s right, no colour whatsoever. 

It’s surprising how much this removes the enjoyment of scrolling. When I did this, my screen time plummeted. The one major problem with this is that you often need colour on your phone for more than just bright colours on social media.

A family member may share a special photo, for example, but the reasons are endless. But it can be used for a form of reset. Even doing this for a couple of days can have a massive impact on your usage going forward.

And that’s it, I’m sure there are hundreds more ways of achieving a better digital environment and reducing screen time, but I’ll only suggest the ideas I have experience with. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

What you see on your phone is just as, if not more, important than who you spend time with in real life. Your digital environment is a massive part of your overall well-being, so treat that environment the same as you would the environment of your home.

Good luck!