During the strange limbo period between Christmas and New Year when all rules and self-restraint seem to go out of the window in a haze of TV specials, Turkey sandwiches and TikTok doom scrolling, my screen time levels seem to creep up to a scary level. And so, in a bid to regain some level of self-respect and feel like a functioning human again, I make the same vaguely-worded New Year’s resolution to ‘reduce my screen time’.
And of all my New Year's resolutions, this one always goes out the window the fastest.
I take comfort in knowing it’s not just me who struggles with this. The average person in the UK spends five hours and six minutes per day on their phone, which if maintained throughout a lifetime, would add up to seventeen years (which makes me want to cry). Excessive social media use has also been shown by various studies to negatively affect attention span, focus, sleep quality, stress levels, and most importantly, our relationships. There is some debate on whether social media is the direct cause of these issues—Alice Cappelle has done a brilliant video essay exploring the nuances of this debate which I’ll link at the end—although whatever the outcome, I think we all know intuitively that 5 hours per day on our phones isn’t going to leave us feeling great.
But social media’s not all bad. For me, this is part of the problem. It’s the good parts of social media that I’ve used to justify what, at times, has felt like excessive usage.
Take instagram, for instance. Many of the friends I made when I first moved to a new city several years ago came about through joining a choir I saw advertised on this app. For me, this was my ‘third space’ outside of work, providing a ready-made community that helped me feel settled in my new life.
Solo travel is another example where social media has the potential to strengthen new connections. Having deleted Instagram to be ‘more present’ during my first solo trip interrailing Europe, I quickly realised that it was the messaging app of choice among travellers I met on my walking tours and in hostels. “Let me grab your Instagram and we can meet for dinner or drinks later” was the common refrain—and so I caved and promptly re-downloaded it. I’ve since met up with some of the people I met on these trips months later when back at home, and I’ve been so grateful for the ability to stay in contact.
Similarly, Girls on the Go aims to inspire friendships and real-life social interaction through shared interests and experiences, things that should in theory help us spend more time engaging offline.
Is it possible to use social media in a way that we benefit from its positive qualities without feeling the need to constantly check our phones, constantly scroll at the mercy of Big Tech’s deliberately addictive design?
I’ve concluded that perhaps my failure to quit social media has in the past been down to an all or nothing approach, thinking that to be successful in this endeavour I needed to give it up entirely.
So this year, I’ve set myself a challenge: to use social media more intentionally, to limit mindless scrolling, and focus my time on it to actions that will lead to time spent with friends offline.
I’ve gone in hard on screen time limits on the apps I find most distracting, limiting myself to 30 minutes total per-day, and completely blocking them during working hours. I’ve done this through an app called ‘Opal’ (ironically, I discovered this during an hour-long TikTok binge) which seems to be proving much more effective than the screen time limits in settings.
Limiting, but not blocking entirely, these distracting apps has helped me consider how I am spending those precious few minutes on instagram each day—and I have used them so far to interact with the people I really care about. Already I’ve found I’m less prone to picking up my phone out of habit, I’ve read more, and felt more focused.
Only time will tell if I can stick to this one, but as we enter 2025, I urge you to reconsider how you are using social media. Message or call a friend you haven’t seen for a while, arrange a coffee date, or even browse the GOTG page for an event to attend.
Then, put the phone down, take a breath, and enjoy the space you’ve made for moments of in-person connection.
Video essay by Alice Cappelle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmtCSs0KWGE
Written by Emilie K E on behalf of Girls on the go.