A project by

Fatima Tahir
Habib University’26
Introduction Page 4
Survey Results Page 6
Causes Page 10
Solutions Page 24

*Page numbers
according to PDF*
Are you glued to your phone? This
zine explores why we can't stop
scrolling and what it's doing to us. It
talks about how businesses mess
with our psychology to create
addictive apps, driving an urgent
need for online engagement, and
the consequences of this addiction
on individual well-being.
The zine also offers
solutions for breaking free
from this digital prison.
Ultimately, it provides
practical strategies and
tips to reclaim focus,
balance, and a more
fulfilling offline life.
There’s a lot of important stuff to cover
 A survey was conducted with 67
respondents aged between 12-24 years,
to know about their screentime habits.
read ahead to know what was found
 r eased SCREENTIME
c
D ntration
e
Conc e

cre
5+ hours
a
day
at
ivit
pro
y
duc
tiv
ity

PROCRASTINATING
from important tasks

Hard academic
IO U S
to performance
ANX
after use
Focus

UR G E
c hec k ph o ne
to g connec
tivity

while wo r kin
Especially the young ones who have recently got
more freedom with their screens, genuinely feel
happy about their excessive usage with little to
no feelings of guilt or regret, especially during
vacations. They enjoy the constant entertainment,
and loathe the feeling of boredom when they’re
off their phones and not stimulated enough. Even
hobbies may feel less fascinating than unlimited
screen usage. However, gradually when the
workload increases and there’s a dire need for
attaining balance in life to manage tasks, they
may find it hard to juggle everything successfully
given their uncontrollably out of hand usage.
 Did any of this make you feel like
‘oh dear that's me’?
Because then you’re in the right place,
keep reading!
 Acknowledgement what?

Well, one of the biggest reasons the vast majority of

the world is addicted to digital media, is the fact
that it’s a socially acceptable addiction. It is not
acknowledged as a problem that should be diagnosed.
In fact, the DSM-5, which is, the handbook for the
diagnosis of disorders including addiction, doesn’t
recognise cellphones as always accessible drugs that
we’re addicted to.
What is an addiction?

Constantly thinking about past

or future use
Inability to focus
Inability to stay away or cut
back
Moodiness or depression when
away from it
 So...
don’t you think it’s
fair to admit we’re
addicted
to technology?
 Oh those hormones!

1. You know this one - Dopamine

To put it simply, dopamine is the chemical released
when we anticipate pleasure. When it’s released,
we get a sense of satisfaction, and then what
happens is, we experience an increased drive to
repeat the activity that caused the release. We
want to do it
more and more and more
because doing the same amount of that activity
each time doesn’t lead to the same dopamine surge
as before. To elaborate, dopamine is not linked to
the intrinsic value of the reward, but rather to the
difference between the reward and the previous
state. So, doing the same amount of the thing that
gave us pleasure earlier doesn’t give us the same
amount of pleasure again, as there’s no difference
from the previous state. Hence, doing more of that
becomes important to feel that pleasure. We can
relate this to our increased urge for digital media
usage to feel satisfied.
 2. Cortisol - the stress hormone:
If we were being chased by an animal in the
wild and we’re stressed, cortisol would be
released in our body. Guess what? According
to a study, those addicted to their phones also
have high cortisol levels when they can’t use
their phones. Funny right?

To avoid that stress, we

avoid depriving ourselves
of our phones.
See, you’re progressing!
Gotta make em some

Digital media
companies make money
off of our usage of them,
or should we say,
their usage of us?

Keep reading to
understand
It’s simple; the more we use their apps, the more ads
they can show us, and the more revenue that helps
them generate from their clients - advertisers. Now
their goal is, of course, for us to spend as much time
on their platforms as possible, as Tim Kendall, former
Director of Monetisation at Facebook and former
President of Pinterest suggested. The different
digital giants compete with each other for our
attention - what we’d call Attention Economy. And
yes, this involves hiring psychologists to do
brain-hacking through mere codes! How, you ask?
The algorithm - the well-designed algorithm, that is
being perfected even further by constant monitoring
of our digital activity, like what type of content we
engage with and how much the engagement time
is, so that, we can be shown more of the content that
keeps us hooked for the maximum possible time.
Besides, there are addictive features like the overall
design, the never-ending feed, the ability to refresh
countless times and get a rabbithole of new content
everytime. Even digital games have deliberately
added addictive features. Antony Cuthbertson, a
reporter from The Independent, found that Fortnite
hired psychologists to add addictive elements to the
game. Another example is Snapchat’s streaks -
they’re addictive because maintaining them gives a
sense of achievement, while breaking them is
negative reinforcement.
 Notifications

Tinnnnnnn.....

OH BOY did we feel that urge to check what that

beep was about. Did a friend send a meme? Is there
an event? Is it an important text? Is an influencer on
live? What’s going on? Well, one explanation is, we’re
just very curious beings and our curiosity makes us
urge checking what that notification was about.
Another explanation could be, we fear missing out on
something we know might not be important.
Nomophobia is the fear of not being able to use our
phone - that’s what we experience when we don’t
check our notifications. Gotta avoid that cortisol!
 A study divided students into two groups.

Both groups
had to watch a
10-minute
lecture

had to give their phones away for could keep their phones with them
the duration, but had to leave their but had to have notifications off
notifications on for duration

Students of both groups were monitored for changes in

their heart rate and skin conductance (sweating etc), to
measure anxiety. While the lecture played, 4 messages
were sent to students both the groups.

significant increase in skin

conductivity, which indicates
increased anxiety. Nomophobia
increased anxiety you see?

Hence, we immediately check our phones when we hear notifications.

 No urgent task at hand

Sometimes, we just hop onto our phones

because at that given time there’s no task
that requires our immediate attention.
So, unconsciously, we choose to
get instant gratification by
using our phone, rather
than doing something
that takes more effort
because it’s not an
urgent need to do so.
In other words, we
procrastinate from the
tasks that aren’t urgent,
to do something more
pleasurable at that time,
that is, scrolling through
Instagram! Also, when there’s
no urgent task at hand, we’re less
mindful about the time we spend on
digital media, and hence, without us even
realising, hours may be killed while we
scroll, click, and repeat.
 Why so short Attention Span?

Well, our brains have only so much real estate, don’t they?
There is a limit to how much information we can
accumulate in our brains at a time, and in this era, all sorts
of information is ever so widely accessible to us. FOMO
(fear of missing out) and societal pressure can make it a bit
hard to realise that certain information needs to be filtered
out, and we may subconsciously think we should fit
information about basically everything in our mind. So
while the real estate of our brain doesn’t grow, it gets
divided into smaller and smaller PIECES as we attempt to fit in more
and more information. And hence, our attention span
decreases.
 Start on a Good Note
First and foremost, if we want to get over
our digital media addiction and lead a
more balanced life, it’s important to start
off with the right mindset. We shouldn’t
start from a place of self-hate for having
wasted the time that has gone by,
because this negativity could just make it
worse and we don’t want to go in that
rabbithole of instant gratification again to
temporarily distract ourselves from
negative thoughts. So, we should start on
a positive note, with the right intention.
 Digital Detox - Reset, Refresh.

So, like a drug addict has to be sent to

rehab to beat the addiction, where they’re
deprived of intoxicants, a digital media
addict should also undergo a
digital detox, where they’re
deprived of games and
content for a while, to beat
that constant urge to play
those games or consume
that content, so that
eventually, when they
start using the screen
for entertainment again,
they are more balanced in their approach.
Whenever usage gets so excessive it starts
taking a toll on your important tasks and
mental health, frequent digital detox
periods can help.
 Make Usage Harder
Intervention Beat the
If we’re struggling to control our usage Muscle Memory
ourselves, we can explore other, stricter Sometimes we may just, unconsciously,
options. For example, if the usage reminders
open an app simply because it’s
or app limits aren’t doing it for you because
ingrained in our muscle memory to do
you always dismiss them and continue being
glued to the screen, intervention from so, and for all we know, we end up
someone else who holds authority might help. wasting a good amount of time without
For example, you can ask your elder siblings even intending to. So, every once in a
or parents/guardians to set a password for while, we can switch up the positions
dismissing app limits, so every time you try to of the apps we feel addicted to, to
dismiss, you have to ask for them to put in
nullify the possibility of unconsciously
the password, which you might avoid because
opening them because ‘we’re used to.’
you may have to give reasons to them for
the extra usage!

Say No to Comfort! App Version? NO

Okay okay, let me explain! So, if we’re The title says it all. If we can’t help but
comfortable while doing something, we open these social media apps on our
continue to do it - because duh, we’re phone only to find ourselves scrolling for
comfortable! So you know what? Let's hours, we just delete them from our
make it uncomfortable. Like, we can phones! Now - that doesn’t mean we
pledge not to use our phones while lying don’t get to use them, because that can
down or while our back is resting against potentially drive us crazy. We can still
support. To use our phone, we have to sit use them, but on our computers/laptops,
upright, or stand up, and that itself, or even, phone browsers. That just
makes it less appealing to give up comfort makes it feel like a little too much effort
to scroll mindlessly, so we can do something to use those platforms.
more fruitful in that time.
Usage Reminders and App Limits

When we’re mindlessly scrolling through

garbage content or playing stimulating games,
we can be kept hooked for hours unless we are
made to realize how much time we’ve spent.
There are options to set reminders that, after
every few minutes, remind us about our usage,
so we get a chance to consciously decide
whether to stop or continue. This feature is
built-in in YouTube and Instagram.
YouTube: settings → general.
Instagram: settings → your activity → time spent.
We can also decide on a time limit for each app
to ensure we’re not wasting too much time
doing something unproductive. Both Apple
and Android users can go to their device
settings to set these time limits.

You’ve been using

it for 15 precious
minutes
 Nonononotifications
(not stammering)

So, here’s the thing - we’ve talked

about how a simple beep on our
phone can drive the intense urge
to check that notification. And if
we contemplate on this, really,
most of those notifications are
just not important enough to
interrupt your much more
important tasks. So, we should turn off the notifications for
the apps from where no useful prompts are expected. If
that seems hard at first, we can start by using focus modes
on our phones like Do Not Disturb, which temporarily blocks
notifications while on. When we’re done working, we can turn
off the focus mode and get all the useless notifications we
didn’t want to block out completely! Also, focus modes allow
notifications from contacts of our choice, so we don’t miss
out on something urgent.
 Usage for Breaks Only

All the people who seemed to have found their

balance between their digital media usage and
studies/work, used social media or played games
when they wanted to take a quick break from
work. They said they end up feeling energised
and motivated if their usage is like this, rather
than feeling guilty or frustrated about excessive
usage. One framework is the Pomodoro Method,
whereby, after every 25 or 50 minutes of work,
one gets a 5 or 10-minute break respectively.
Using digital media in the breaks can potentially
help refresh the mind to be more focused when
resuming work. But if you’re addicted, it may
backfire, and you might lose focus because of
that usage. In such situations, a Digital Detox
becomes crucial.
On page 25
of the PDF
 Short-form Content oops

The infinite scroll

of short-form
content is not our
best friend as
we’ve discussed.
To fix the
dwindling
attention span, we
can start
consuming more
long-form content
like
documentaries, or
simply, longer
videos of anything
that intrigues us.
 Maintain a Calendar
We’re more likely to do the tasks we have scheduled to do
at a certain time. We’ve earlier discussed how if our tasks
are due later, we might just waste off that precious time
scrolling reels. But if we mark a time slot on our calendar to
do that task in advance, we might just end up working at
that time simply because it’s on the schedule.

Organisation can really do wonders! We can

make a list of our tasks to be done over say,
the next two weeks, and consciously block
time slots on the calendar for those tasks.
We should check our calendars while starting Click here to
check out some
our days, to see what’s scheduled, so we’re
calendar apps
more conscious of our goals for the day.
 Set the Streak,
Gamify that Task!
Now that we know how apps keep us hooked by
using addictive features, we can spin the
situation in our favour by using those tactics to
our advantage! Remember the snapstreaks
example? Let’s derive a solution from there. As
suggested by the owner of Duolingo, Luis von
Ahn, setting streaks for important tasks can
make the fulfilment of those tasks especially
rewarding, giving you that dopamine hit to keep
you going! And of course, breaking a streak
doesn’t feel good either! Thereby, we are
encouraged to be consistent with the tasks to
maintain the streak! Like Duolingo, other
learning/productivity-related apps can also use
this feature to help with our consistency. To
record streaks of our daily goals, apps like Streaks
(iOS), and HabitNow (Android) can help.
Gamification can also be done by timing
yourself for a particular task each time you do it,
like working on a project, and seeing how much
more time you can stretch every session for.
All this helps increase our dopamine on
something productive, and hence, we feel like
doing it again!
 I’m telling you. FIND. A. HOBBY.

We end up on our phones because we are bored and it’s an

easy way to entertain ourselves. We should think about what
activity we love to do, and consciously choose that over using
our phones when we’re bored. It keeps us entertained, and
it’s productive - 2 in 1!

Parental Control
It is imperative that parents help their children develop
healthy habits. Regardless of whether there is schoolwork or
not, there should be a strict limit on digital media usage. This
can help developing children learn moderation and balance.

Lead by Example
For those happy addicts, who we’re concerned about, we
should lead them by example to help them understand how
fruitful finding our balance can be. We should practice for
them to observe, ways to spend time besides our phones, like
involving them in activities like sports and other hobbies, or
skill acquisition.
 Choose your storage

This one’s for that dwindling attention span.

We have to choose what information we
want to load our brains with. We must ask
ourselves what topics genuinely make us
happy, and use our brain capacity to hold
information about those things. Under
FOMO or peer/societal pressure, we mustn’t
try to absorb all sorts of irrelevant
information in our brains. After all, we want
to have better attention spans for the things
that actually matter.
 Hold Them Tech Companies
Accountable!
We should become part of the broader solution,
by demanding from tech companies
who use our data to train the
algorithms to give us targeted
content and ads, to share
that data with organisations
that can help people whose
digital presence habits show
signs of mental health
disorders. Apart from
that, while it is highly
unlikely for this to be
practically implicated, digital
media companies offering
short form content must put
a limit to the consumption.
For example, Instagram can put a limit to the
number of reels one can watch at a time.
Besides, after a certain amount of usage, the
algorithm should dilute interesting content to
encourage balanced usage.
 Good job
for sticking
through!
ALL DONE!
or should I say you’re welcome