Take control: With just a few simple steps, you can increase your digital well-being.
This article was originally written on the Center for Humane Technology.
Here are a few important steps you can take right now to increase your digital well-being and regain control. Start with your own devices and invite friends or family to join you. Our collective individual actions are creating a powerful growing movement. Together, we can change the system.
Note: The resources linked here will direct you to organizations who we think are doing great work. These third-party sites are not formally affiliated with CHT and their content may change without notice. Please review with care and discretion.
Turn Off Notifications
Red is a trigger color that instantly draws our attention. Reclaim your time by turning off notifications.
Take Control
- Go to Settings > Notifications, or swipe left on any incoming notification and hit Manage > Turn Off.
Remove Toxic Apps
Remove apps that profit off of addiction, distraction, outrage, polarization, and misinformation.
Take Control
- Remove Facebook → Message friends with Signal.
- Remove TikTok → Send video messages by direct text or with Marco Polo.
- Remove Snapchat → Get creative in Text instead.
- Remove Instagram → Use VSCO for photography.
Learn how to support your teen’s digital health and wellness and help them be a good digital citizen here.
Download Helpful Tools
While we can’t solve tech with more tech, there are some tools out there that can help. Here’s our short list.
Take Control
- Get more sleep and remove blue light → Flux
- Track your screen time & change habits → For iOS and Android
- Reduce distractions → News Feed Eradicator
- Stay focused on your goals → Flipd
- Practice mindfulness → Insight Timer
Eliminate Outrage From Your Diet
We vote with our clicks. Don’t support sites that pollute our cultural environment with vitriol via clickbait and outrage.
Take Control
- Unfollow outrage-chasing voices on Twitter → Use iUnfollow to clean up your following. Start fresh and intentionally choose the voices you expose yourself to.
- Unfollow outrage-driven Facebook Groups → Check your Groups > Settings > Following
- Remove sharply polarized media outlets from your news feed → Both MSNBC & FOXNews
Follow Voices You Disagree With
Social media serves us content we already agree with to keep us online longer, eroding our ability to engage with people who don’t share our views. To solve problems from poverty to racism to climate change, we have to come together and expose ourselves to different perspectives.
Take Control
- Check news sites whose perspectives you disagree with → AllSides gives readers a cross-partisan view of world events covered by the media, and sustains itself on a consciously created hybrid revenue model to avoid bias and clickbait incentives.
Be Compassionate
Social media profits off hate and anger because it generates more engagement. Let’s fight back with compassion.
Take Control
- Pause → Remember there’s a real person behind the screen; don’t be so quick to unfollow or publicly argue with someone who posts something you disagree with.
- Be compassionate → Try a private message to ask why they feel that way, with genuine curiosity and a desire to understand.
Set Boundaries
We use our phones and news feeds from the moment we wake up, to falling asleep, and even in the bathroom.
Take Control
- Clear your mornings & evenings → Set clear bounded blocks of time without technology.
- Device-free dinners → Play a game where the first person to check their device does the dishes.
- Create a shared charging station at home → Charge your family’s phones away from bedrooms overnight.
- Buy a separate alarm clock → Wake up without getting sucked into your phone first thing in the morning.
Fully Disconnect One Day Per Week
Disconnecting can be a powerful way to reconnect with yourself and your loved ones. It’s not only good for you — collectively we can reduce time spent on social media platforms by 15%, impacting bottom lines.
Take Control
- Pick a date and let your friends and family know you’ll be offline → Or better yet, invite them to join you.
Remember the Positive
If you receive 99 positive comments on a post and 1 negative comment, which do you focus on? Our survival-biased brains tend to focus on the negative, even after we turn away from our tech.
Take Control
- Take screenshots of the positive messages you receive to store in a folder on your phone → Let the rest go. Tech warps how our brains receive feedback, and we can fight back by remembering the positive.
- Practice cultivating gratitude for others and using technology to share your love → Send a special video to a friend with Tribute or Montage.
Support Local Journalism
Don’t force your local newspaper to play social media’s clickbait game. Support your local newspaper directly by paying for a subscription so that we can remain the customer, not the product. Democracy doesn’t work without healthy journalism.
Take Control
- Find your local newspapers and support them → USNPL directory
- Upgrade your membership on platforms that provide meaningful content.
This article was originally published on Center for Humane Technology and only minimally edited for clarity. Read the article in its original publication.
More About Taking Control of Tech Use
Learn how to help protect your preteen or teen online. BLOOM is here to help, whether you are looking for tips on how to talk to your kids about internet safety, tech security tips to protect them online, or even in-depth and personalized Q&As and workshops. Raising young people is hard enough. We are here to help demystify and provide support!
