In a world where our phones buzz constantly with notifications, news alerts, and social media updates, many of us have fallen into the habit of “doomscrolling” – endlessly consuming negative news and content that leaves us feeling anxious, depressed, and disconnected from real life. The good news? Breaking this cycle is possible with intentional practice and gradual changes to our digital habits.
This article presents a fresh approach to digital wellness through 20 practical challenges designed to help you regain control over your technology use. Whether you have five minutes or a full weekend, there’s a challenge here that can fit into your life and help you develop a healthier relationship with your devices.
Why We Doomscroll (And Why It’s Hard to Stop)
Before diving into the challenges, it’s worth understanding why doomscrolling is so common and difficult to overcome:
- Our brains are wired for threats: Evolutionarily, we’re programmed to pay attention to potential dangers, which is why negative news captures our attention so effectively.
- Variable rewards: Social media platforms are designed to deliver unpredictable rewards (likes, interesting posts, etc.), creating a slot machine-like effect that keeps us scrolling.
- The illusion of control: Reading about problems can give us a false sense of control over situations that may actually be beyond our influence.
- FOMO (Fear of Missing Out): We worry about missing important information or social connections if we disconnect.
Understanding these mechanisms can help us approach our digital habits with greater awareness and compassion for ourselves.
The Challenge Approach: Small Steps to Big Changes
Rather than attempting a complete digital detox (which often fails), these challenges take a more realistic, incremental approach. By experimenting with different strategies, you can discover what works best for your lifestyle and gradually build healthier habits.
Let’s explore these challenges across different timeframes and commitment levels:
Quick Daily Interventions (5-15 Minutes)
1. The Mindful Scroll
How it works: Before opening any social media app, take three deep breaths and set a clear intention for why you’re using it. After closing the app, take 30 seconds to reflect on how the experience made you feel.
Why it works: This simple practice introduces awareness into what is often an automatic behavior, helping you recognize patterns in how digital content affects your mood.
2. The 1-Minute Pause Rule
How it works: When you feel the urge to check your phone, institute a 60-second waiting period. Take a deep breath, look around you, and ask yourself if checking your phone right now is truly necessary.
Why it works: This brief pause interrupts the automatic reach-for-phone response and reintroduces conscious choice into your technology use.
3. The Boredom Challenge
How it works: When you feel bored and tempted to scroll, challenge yourself to sit with that boredom for 10 minutes. Notice the feelings that arise and how they change over time.
Why it works: Boredom is often the gateway to creativity and deeper thinking. Learning to tolerate boredom rebuilds our capacity for sustained attention and independent thought.
4. The Gratitude Swap
How it works: Every time you catch yourself doomscrolling, put down your phone and write down one thing you’re grateful for instead.
Why it works: This practice directly counters the negativity bias of doomscrolling with a proven wellbeing booster – gratitude.
5. News From a Single Source
How it works: Choose one reputable, balanced news source and limit your news consumption to just that source for the day.
Why it works: This reduces information overload and exposure to multiple angles of the same negative stories, while still keeping you informed.
Week-Long Challenges
6. Screen-Free Mornings
How it works: For one week, don’t check your phone during the first hour after waking up. Instead, use this time for a morning routine that nurtures your wellbeing – perhaps meditation, journaling, exercise, or enjoying breakfast mindfully.
Why it works: How you start your day sets the tone for your attention and mood. Morning hours are precious for setting intentions and connecting with yourself before external inputs flood in.
7. The 5-5-5 Rule
How it works: Each day for a week, limit yourself to 5 minutes reading news, 5 minutes on social media, and then spend 5 minutes reflecting on how that content made you feel.
Why it works: This creates boundaries around consumption while encouraging reflection, helping you become more aware of how digital content affects your emotional state.
8. Grayscale Mode Challenge
How it works: Set your phone display to grayscale mode for an entire week (find this in accessibility settings on most smartphones).
Why it works: Colorful app icons and content are specifically designed to grab our attention and trigger dopamine release. Removing color reduces the visual appeal and makes scrolling less compelling.
9. Social Media Fast
How it works: Choose your most problematic social media app and take a complete break from it for one week.
Why it works: This break disrupts habitual use and creates space to notice both the benefits of being without the app and any genuine value it might add to your life.
10. No Social Media Before Bed
How it works: Establish a “digital sunset” 1-2 hours before bedtime, with particular emphasis on avoiding social media and news.
Why it works: Besides improving sleep quality by reducing blue light exposure, this practice prevents negative content from affecting your thoughts as you try to fall asleep.
Social and Interactive Challenges
11. The Conversation Challenge
How it works: When you feel the urge to scroll, call or message a friend for a real conversation instead.
Why it works: This redirects the social connection need that often drives social media use toward more meaningful, fulfilling interactions.
12. Digital Accountability Partner
How it works: Partner with a friend who also wants to improve their digital habits. Check in with each other daily to share successes and challenges, and perhaps even use screen time tracking apps to compare notes.
Why it works: Social accountability dramatically increases our likelihood of sticking to new habits, while sharing the journey makes it more enjoyable.
13. Feed Cleanse
How it works: Spend 30 minutes unfollowing or muting accounts that regularly post negative, sensationalist, or simply non-valuable content. Aim to cut at least 10 such accounts.
Why it works: This proactively shapes your information environment to support your wellbeing rather than undermine it.
14. Positive Content Infusion
How it works: Follow 5 new accounts that post genuinely uplifting, educational, or constructive content – think science discoveries, art, nature photography, or solutions journalism.
Why it works: Rather than just reducing negative inputs, this actively increases positive content in your feed, making the time you do spend online more nurturing.
15. The Tech-Free Social Gathering
How it works: Organize a get-together with friends where everyone agrees to keep phones away for the duration of the event.
Why it works: This reinforces that our most meaningful connections happen face-to-face and helps break the social norm of constant phone checking.
Weekend and Extended Challenges
16. Notification-Free Weekend
How it works: Turn off all non-essential notifications (calls from close contacts might be the only exception) for an entire weekend.
Why it works: This reduces the constant interruptions that fragment our attention and gives you back control over when you engage with technology.
17. Weekend Digital Detox
How it works: Go completely screen-free from Friday evening to Sunday evening (basic phone calls allowed).
Why it works: This extended break helps reset your relationship with technology and often reveals just how much digital use has become automatic rather than intentional.
18. Social Media-Free Sunday
How it works: Designate Sundays (or another day of your choice) as completely free from social media.
Why it works: Creating a regular rhythm of digital breaks builds sustainable habits and provides a consistent opportunity to engage with offline activities.
19. Outdoor Time Exchange
How it works: For every 20 minutes you spend on social media or news sites during a weekend, commit to spending 20 minutes outdoors.
Why it works: This creates a natural limit on screen time while encouraging nature connection, which research shows significantly improves mental wellbeing.
20. The 24-Hour Digital Sabbath
How it works: Choose a 24-hour period each week to completely disconnect from the internet.
Why it works: This more extended break helps you rediscover offline interests and can be a profound reset for your attention and creativity.
Making These Challenges Work for You
The key to success with these challenges isn’t perfection but experimentation and self-awareness. Here are some tips to get the most benefit:
- Start small: Choose one challenge that feels doable rather than trying to change everything at once.
- Track your experience: Keep brief notes on how different challenges affect your mood, productivity, and overall wellbeing.
- Be compassionate: If you slip up (and most people do), treat yourself with kindness and simply begin again.
- Create environmental supports: Make changes to your physical environment to support your goals, like charging your phone outside the bedroom or using app blockers.
- Replace, don’t just remove: The most successful behavior changes involve substituting a new activity for the old one. What might you do with the time and attention you reclaim?
Beyond the Challenges: Creating Lasting Change
After experimenting with these challenges, consider developing a personal “digital philosophy” – a set of principles that guide your technology use in alignment with your deeper values and goals. Ask yourself:
- What role do I want technology to play in my life?
- Which digital activities genuinely enhance my wellbeing and which detract from it?
- What boundaries would help me use technology as a tool rather than being used by it?
The goal isn’t to eliminate technology – it’s to put it in its proper place as a tool that serves your life rather than dominates it. With intentional practice, you can transform your relationship with digital media from one of passive consumption to active choice, reclaiming your attention and wellbeing in the process.
Which challenge will you try first?
