Start having meaningful Screentime

It seems to be one of the biggest struggles of our generation. To lower our screentime. To be present offline. To cure ourselves of universal phone addiction.

While it is great to lower our screentime to a minimum and try to as present as we can be in the offline (some would even say it is the real) world, there is something else we can do to feel better with our screentime at the end of the day: Make it meaningful.

What you can find in this post about self-growth:

1. Only the actually interesting

The internet can be a wonderful place. If you use it right and you are actually using it and not it you! So, to make my time on the internet more meaningful and fulfilling, I have decided to only watch what is actually interesting to me.

How do I do that, you might ask?

First, I ask myself before opening an app if there is actually anything I am keen to watch right now. A lot of the time nothing comes to mind because I was about to open social media mindlessly.

If that doesn’t work and I am already on the app (and might have already started scrolling) I try to take a step back and ask myself if the things I am watching right now are actually doing something for me. That might be that they are funny, informative, relaxing… But most of the time the answer is no.

That helps me to not scroll mindlessly (too much).

After getting clear that what I am doing is not getting me where I want to go (being relaxed, mostly) I either close the app and do something else or I think about what would actually be interesting to watch in that moment.

Because there is great, inspiring, informative and funny content all over the internet. We just have to specifically look for it sometimes.

I might choose a video of a comedian I like, a book review or a TedTalk. But I chose to watch that, it didn’t choose me.

And most of the time I am so much more relaxed after that than double the time spent scrolling mindlessly.

2. Make yourself commit

My second rule to use screentime meaningfully that I have implemented is to make myself commit.

I have to commit to watching the full video once I started it. Which leads me to open wayy less content because I already know I don’t want to watch something that I am not even interested in for 5-6 Minutes.

It helps me with rule number 1 but also with prolonging my attention span through having to focus for more than 60 seconds.

Shorts are obviously banned by this rule, as they would ruin my attention span again.

So, these are my two rules that I believe will help you start having (more) meaningful Screentime, too!

And just a reminder: I don’t always follow these rules. I am not perfect!

Sometimes I am tired and exhausted and cannot find the sort of discipline needed. But I come back to it as much as I can, and I know through repetition it will become a habit over time and it will be easier to follow through with every time I do it.

This post has been all about two rules to start having meaningful screentime.

I hope this has been helpful and please remember: You deserve all the good things this world has to offer!

More Blog Posts for you