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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Screens and attention
Decide in advance what happens at the finish, and make sure something appealing is waiting on the other side. A timer that only tells you to stop asks you to fight the pull with nothing in your hand. A timer that means you are going out for a walk, or eating, or meeting someone, gives you something to move towards instead. Choose that next thing while you are not mid scroll, because you will not choose well once you are.
When you come across people who speak with scorn about Our revelations, turn away from them until they move on to another topic (Quran 6:68). Leaving is given as an ordinary move with a condition attached, which is what a planned exit is.
الأنعام
وَإِذَا رَأَيۡتَ ٱلَّذِينَ يَخُوضُونَ فِيٓ ءَايَٰتِنَا فَأَعۡرِضۡ عَنۡهُمۡ حَتَّىٰ يَخُوضُواْ فِي حَدِيثٍ غَيۡرِهِۦۚ وَإِمَّا يُنسِيَنَّكَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنُ فَلَا تَقۡعُدۡ بَعۡدَ ٱلذِّكۡرَىٰ مَعَ ٱلۡقَوۡمِ ٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ
When you come across people who speak with scorn about Our revelations, turn away from them until they move on to another topic. If Satan should make you forget, then, when you have remembered, do not sit with those who are doing wrong
Qur’an 6:68read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A systematic review and meta analysis measured how much more steeply people with internet addiction discount rewards that are delayed, compared with people without. If a reward further off is worth less to you, the alternative you line up has to be soon and concrete rather than a benefit you will feel next month. The studies compare groups rather than following people over time, so read it as a description of the pattern and not its cause.
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.
Moving towards something you want is much easier than stopping something you are enjoying.
More hours on social media goes with more anxiety and low mood. That is a reason to aim at fewer hours, a conversation you can actually have, rather than at none, which usually ends the conversation.
Real footage of people dying circulates without any warning, sometimes buried inside a video that starts off looking harmless. Young people rarely raise this themselves, so it is worth asking.
Sitting with one long unrewarding task has got harder for almost everyone. If you are planning work for yourself, or setting it for someone else, build the variety in rather than hoping for stamina.