kickstart your reboot

FIRST, INVITE SOMEONE TO JOIN YOU.

Reshaping your technology habits is easier and more fun with a buddy. Invite a friend, family member, or colleague to take a Social Media Reboot with you:

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

CREATE SCROLL-FREE TIME & SPACE

89% of cellphone users admit to using their phones during their last social gathering. Persuasive technologies are eating away at meaningful interactions and personal time. 2015, Pew.

Know your screen time

Use your phone’s native screen time app, Moment (started by film subject Tim Kendall), or ScreenHive (Google Play) to see how much time you’re spending on your phone, and set goals to reduce it.

No scrolling 30 min. before/after bed

Charge your phone overnight in a room other than your bedroom and use a standalone alarm clock to resist morning and evening temptation.

Eliminate phones from mealtime

Make the dinner table a sacred space to connect with others and help establish this as a norm in and out of the household.

Take a scroll-free day

Once a week, set a day in which you won’t use your phone for anything other than calls or texts. A scroll-free day creates space to examine how using your phone with intention can improve your focus, mood, and relationships.

Reclaim screen time for connection

Higher levels of switching between media channels is significantly linked to lower levels of working and long-term memory. 2018, National Academy of Sciences.

Stick to notifications from real people

Spend 5 minutes in the settings of your phone and disable notifications on any apps that use algorithms to determine what information you see.

Limit when you get notifications

Use a tool like DayWise to batch select app notifications for a specific time of day or schedule “do not disturb” time to limit them for a particular period of time.

Turn your phone to grayscale

Turn off full color mode to make it less likely to hold your attention.

Cleanup your home screen

Keep your home screen to apps that are actual tools. Use the search feature to access any other apps. This extra bit of friction will help limit mindless scrolling.

Take it a step further, delete!

If you can, delete your social media accounts or remove them from your phone to encourage more intentional use from a computer. Use a tool like Freedom to temporarily block sites and apps to promote focus without deleting your accounts.

Free yourself from the manipulation engines

Simulation experiments on YouTube reveal its recommendation system consistently steers viewers towards politically extreme content. 2020, Association for Computing Machinery.

Opt out of cross-app tracking

iPhone apps default to tracking activity across apps to power their surveillance-based business models. As of April 26, 2021, users can opt-out of cross-app tracking. Upgrade to iOS v14.5. Select “Ask App not to Track” when opening your apps. An estimated 96% of users are opting out. Get more info on opting out here.

Avoid feed recommendations

Never accept a video that is recommended for you as these are designed to hold your attention at any cost. To help with this, you can remove YouTube’s video recommendations entirely or turn off video autoplay on all of your services.

Swap feeds with someone else

You can screen share your newsfeed on Zoom, or use a tool like Vicariously (for Twitter) to temporarily trade filter bubbles with someone else. Ask yourself, “How might my beliefs be different if I was looking through their newsfeed for the last ten years?”

Take care before you share

Fake news spreads 6 times faster than true news. Use these practices to help curb the spread of misinformation that can have real-world consequences. 2018, Science.

Pledge to pause

Join the UN’s Pledge to Pause campaign, which uses behavioral science to combat the spread of misinformation. The simple act of pausing interrupts our emotional response so we can ask: “WHO made it, WHAT is the source, WHEN was it published and WHY are you sharing.

Investigate the source

You can download the NewsGuard extension to see who’s behind each site and whether it has a record of publishing accurate information.

Do your reading

Don’t share after only reading a headline. If it elicits a strong emotional reaction, it was probably designed to do so. Commit to reading the full article before sharing.

Find better coverage

Intentionally seek out opposing information and diverse voices. Look across the Internet for other sources. Has the information been verified by multiple credible news sources?

Opt for other ways to share

Consider sharing in ways that may be more meaningful such as FaceTime, text, or a platform that focuses on meaningful conversations like Marco Polo or Fabriq.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Reclaim Control

Check out The Center for Humane Technology’s ‘Take Control’ guide
Read Catherine Price’s How to Break Up With Your Phone and use her accompanying workbook, 3-Day Phone Breakup Challenge, and 10-Day Social Media Detox to. Use code SDSLB15 at checkout or this link to automatically add 15% at checkout on all products.
Take Mozilla + Tactical Tech’s Data Detox (available in 30 languages)

Combat misinformation

Download Ad Observer to contribute to the public’s understanding of how political ads on Facebook are used to target people and fuel division.
Use TikTok’s new feature to report misinformation
Add the YouTube Regrets Reporter extension to your browser to flag questionable video content (Firefox and Chrome)
Avoid misinformation circulating on social media and consult directly with a diverse mix of news sources. Consider a service like Flipside that delivers a free, daily email with thoughtful points from the left, right, and in-between—across 30+ news sources.

Protect your privacy

Use a search engine that does not track you such as DuckDuckGo or Qwant.
Change your Google and YouTube privacy settings, and change how much of your website activity is sent to Facebook.
Opt for a browser like Firefox or Brave that respects your online privacy. You can use Firefox’s Do Not Track feature to tell websites you don’t want to be tracked and Faceook Container to prevent Facebook from tracking your activity.
If you’re still using Chrome, you can install extensions like UBlock Origin, HTTPS Everywhere and Privacy Badger to limit website’s ability to track you.
Turn off location sharing on your device and with mobile apps using these simple steps.
Use Blacklight to inspect any website and reveal the tracking technologies that are collecting your data

SUPPORT THE NEXT GENERATION

Use Common Sense Media’s Family Media Agreement to establish limits around screen time that are intentional and reinforce healthy technology habits.

Want to suggest another resource? Get in touch here.