Loading practices
Loading practices
Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Screens and attention
Put that way most people will engage, because it is not a demand to become a calmer sort of person. Cold water, music that actually moves you, laughing with somebody, running for a bus, finishing something small enough to see the end of. Each gives a bit back quickly, which is the quality that matters here. Collect three or four that genuinely work for you and keep them somewhere you can reach on a bad evening.
Remember God often so that you may prosper (Quran 62:10). The frequency named there is a direct alternative use for the small gaps in a day that the phone usually takes.
الجمعة
فَإِذَا قُضِيَتِ ٱلصَّلَوٰةُ فَٱنتَشِرُواْ فِي ٱلۡأَرۡضِ وَٱبۡتَغُواْ مِن فَضۡلِ ٱللَّهِ وَٱذۡكُرُواْ ٱللَّهَ كَثِيرࣰ ا لَّعَلَّكُمۡ تُفۡلِحُونَ
then when the prayer has ended, disperse in the land and seek out God’s bounty. Remember God often so that you may prosper
Qur’an 62:10read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A systematic review and meta-analysis has quantified how much more steeply people with internet addiction discount delayed rewards than others, meaning a smaller reward now outweighs a larger later one by a wider margin. Those are group comparisons, and none of them tests any particular alternative. The transferable part is about timing: a replacement that only pays off in a month is competing on the wrong terms.
Cheng YS, Ko HC, Sun CK, Yeh PY. (2021). The relationship between delay discounting and Internet addiction: A systematic review and meta-analysis.. Addictive behaviors doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
The pull is towards a reward that arrives fast, so alternatives that arrive fast are the ones with a chance.
If you want a way back in with a teenager who has gone quiet, ask them to show you the game. Not to assess it. Just to be shown something they are good at.
Ask everybody, at the start, what they use and how it goes for them there. Not only the ones who arrive with an obvious phone problem.
A screen is a privilege, not something a person is owed. Food, clothes, a warm home, medical care, school, being loved: those are owed, and a phone is not on that list.