Behavior: Scrolling on Instagram explore page
Interval: every hour from when I wake up until before I go to sleep
Saturday Jan 11 Day 1:
10:00 am – 20 minutes scrolled before getting out of bed
11:00am – 3 minutes scrolled as I waited for my food to microwave
12:00pm – 10 minutes scrolled before I got into the shower
1:00 pm – none bc I did work
2:00pm – 1 minute between doing work
3:00 pm none because I was studying
4:00 pm none because I was studying
5:00 pm – 37 minutes scrolled during dinner
6:00pm – none because I was doing homework
7:00pm – none because I was doing homework
8:00pm – 48 minutes after finishing homework
9:00pm – 3 minutes after Bathroom break
10:00pm – 15 minutes before I got ready for bed
11:00pm 10 minutes in bed
Sunday Jan 12 Day 2:
11:00 am – 10 minutes after I woke up
12:00 pm – 5 minutes during getting ready to go out
1:00 pm – 20 minutes during lunchtime as I ate my meal
2:00 pm – none because I was doing homework readings
3:00 pm – none because I was doing homework readings
4:00 pm – 5 minutes as a study break
5:00 pm – none because I was doing studying for a class
6:00 pm – none because I was studying for a class with friends
7:00 pm – 10 minutes during our study break
8:00 pm – 30 minutes during dinner
9:00 pm – 1 minutes before shower
10:00 pm – 6 minutes after getting ready for bed
11:00 pm – 12 minutes in bed before going to sleep
Connection Circle Model
Feedback Loop/ CLD Model
Experience
I realize I often caught myself automatically going to instagram to scroll wherever I was waiting on something. For instance, when I was waiting for my food to heat up, I automatically pulled out my phone to satisfy my dopamine levels while I waited for my food. I would consider this a form of pre gratification as food is what would provide dopamine given I am eating something that makes me happy, however, also scrolling through instagram provides something similar even if the levels are small. I also caught myself scrolling before bed, as a form of revenge for bedtime procrastination. I came to realize that I did this mostly when I went hours without scrolling on instagram. I use this “downtime” as an excuse to reward myself for not using instagram throughout the day–seeing it as a means of “catching up” with what I missed throughout the hours that I did not scroll through the explore page. For context, I use my photography account where I mostly follow photographers and post photography. Given I am trying to find my style, I go on an explore page to find inspiration or find photographers whose styles I admire and hope to gain inspiration from. Although scrolling is not negatively affecting my mental health, I do realize it takes away from me being present in the moment if I immediately go to grab my phone in the small gaps of breaks I have to myself throughout the day.
What I would do differently next time
Next time, I think I would set a timer on my phone that will give me reminders when I have passed a threshold of time for scrolling through Instagram. It is difficult to change this habit in two days, but definitely minimizing the amount of time I get to scroll each day is something I believe would work. I could also try and get an app that will block off the Instagram app after I have reached my daily use limit. That way, I could wait until the next day to use the app for a limited amount of time. I know there are some apps that make you solve puzzles in order to access the app again, but I think this would be counterproductive as I might just spend more time on my phone trying to solve the puzzle only to scroll. I do think it might deter me from using the instagram app but I also think I would just uninstall the lock app. Another thing I would do is I would track my data for longer periods of time instead of just two days. Given my weekend was busy, I did not get to track earlier in the week but I do realize how using instagram to scroll in small moments /gaps of my day does take productivity away.
