Stop wasting your life on your phone
By Jennifer Dziura
6 min read
Note: The 2025 challenge has now concluded! But keep reading – at the end you can add your name for 2026.
If you’re reading this, I assume you’ve wasted time scrolling.
Or, in some cases, “doomscrolling,” at the end of which you feel stressed and terrible, except now some of your life is over.
Imagine what you could do – and who you could become – if you stopped.
Welcome to No Scroll September.
This is certainly not the first no scroll challenge – many creators and organizations have done these, and in 2018 the UK’s Royal Society for Public Health created a “Scroll Free September,” but has not continued it.
So please allow me.
Why do this?
Are you too distractible to read the sort of books you read in high school? Or even the sorts of online articles you happily read in, say, 2012?
Maybe you can train yourself not to be.
Do you go to bed too late every night, while also feeling bad about it?
Do you not go outside enough?
Do you mean to meet up with people, but no one has the energy to initiate or follow through?
For that matter, do you have kids? If so, I’ll bet you’ve ignored them in favor of your phone more times than you want to admit.
What Exactly is Scrolling?
For our purposes, we’ll define scrolling as:
Viewing content you did not, prior to opening the app, intend to view
and
Doing so repeatedly
An example: If you go on Instagram to post for your business, then you respond to DMs and comments on your posts, then you like a few posts from your clients or colleagues, so far you are working, not scrolling (if this is in fact part of the work you need to do).
But then you see a lady complaining about how she was treated at Chili’s. You watch five seconds of it and say “Wait, what? No,” and you close the app. You were briefly enticed towards scrolling, but you did not scroll! Good!
However, the moment you look at one other post after the Chili’s lady – you have scrolled. Boo!
Your goal during this challenge is not to do that.
What Exactly is the Challenge?
Here it is:
During the month of September, swear off scrolling.
Ideally, build a 30 day streak.
If you break your streak, start again.
See how long a streak you can achieve.
How exactly? Assuming it’s not practical to shut down your phone and check into a silent meditation retreat, you will need to develop new habits.
You may find it edifying to decide what you will use the time for instead.
Write something.
Read something.
Hold a dinner party every week (it’s not 1965, it’s completely fine to invite people over for spaghetti or ordering a pizza and make them sit on yoga cushions in your studio apartment). That’s four dinner parties! Imagine how many relationships you could reinvigorate. People not doing this challenge will bail on you. That’s okay. You can be the new hub of all your friend groups.
Take walks.
Make something.
Learn something.
Remember when people actually listened to an entire album, without doing much else besides listening?
Have a kid? Take your kid to the playground and don’t bring your phone. Resolve not to scroll in front of your child for an entire month. If you do have to take out your phone, explain your intentions to your child. For example, “I’m going to order groceries on my phone, what kind of cereal should we buy?” or “Grandma is on vacation, let’s see if she’s posted any pictures.” Do the task, then put the phone away. Go look for cool rocks.
How to Get Started
If you do NOT need to use social media for work, you could:
Delete social media and similar apps from your phone
On an iPhone, you can hide apps from view (they’re still available in search) or delete them completely. If you actually delete them, you can always download them later – the worst that can happen is that you might lose anything saved in Drafts.
Change all your passwords
…to something impossible to remember, don’t save them your devices or password managers (don’t use your face, fingerprint, or eyeballs), and give those passwords to a trusted individual who will keep them from you for the month of September. For example, put the passwords in a Word document, print it out and give it to your mother, then delete the document.
Or, just use – OMG – willpower
I know this is out of fashion, but you might be an old-fashioned person yourself. It might help to announce your departure on your social media accounts, as in “I’m taking a break from X for awhile – if you want to reach me, email me at…”
If you DO need to use social media for work or consider it important for keeping up with friends and family, you can do this without “scrolling” — that is, without looking at things you did not intend to look at. Your options include:
Set a timer before opening the app
If you have only five minutes to spend on Facebook, you will have to triage: post your business update, then see if anyone you care about has posted anything major. If they have, either post a quick comment or — if more attention is required — log out and give that person a call. On the phone! Or make plans to grab lunch. Anyway: set a timer and stick to it.
Post your business updates from a scheduler
such as Later, Buffer, Plann, Planoly, Hootsuite, etc.
Make a to-do list of actions you will perform before opening the app
For example: post what you need to post, respond to comments and DMs, check a competitor’s feed or like a client’s posts, wish a friend a happy birthday. Cross each item off physically on a list as you do it. When the list is done, you are done. Go outside.
Why Sign Up?
You don’t have to! You can just … not scroll.
Signing up for this list will get you a daily email, which will arrive in the evening, EST, every day in September.
It will contain a quote to contemplate, and at least one suggestion of something to do instead of looking at your device. As you will be reading the email on a device, the email will end with an advisement to now put down your device.
The final email will, as you can imagine, congratulate you for a month better spent.
That’s it!
FAQ
Can I participate without signing up for emails?
Of course. You do not need anyone’s permission to not mindlessly scroll your devices during the month of September.
How can I interact with other people about this?
I suppose we could use the hashtag #NoScrollSeptember wherever hashtags are used, but that seems like having cocktails to celebrate our sobriety, doesn’t it? Just sit with your silence. Call your mother. Send me a postcard.
What is the end result? How will I know I’ve accomplished this?
You can print out this calendar page, put it on your fridge, and give yourself a gold star for every non-scroll day. But all the free time and peace of mind should be hard to miss! What you do with that is up to you.
Will this be annual?
That’s the intention, although perhaps in several years, the idea that mindless scrolling is a problem will seem quaint once people have devices embedded directly in their eyeballs.
Are we ready? Get on the list here:
See you in September! Briefly, in your inbox!
