Habit Tracking
The habit I chose to track was scrolling on Instagram reels since it’s a bad habit I’ve been trying to get rid of. I used to scroll even more on Tiktok but now that I’ve deleted Tiktok, I’ve started to scroll on Reels. Every time I opened and scrolled on Instagram Reels, I wrote in my Notes app the approximate timestamp, an estimate of how long I was on Reels for, a short description of my current context/environment, and how I felt after scrolling. For example, in one log entry I wrote “10:04PM scrolling on reels for 30 mins on Caltrain ride. Bored on 1 hour ride, no book and laptop was dead so I opened Reels. Didn’t realize time passed by quickly and almost missed my stop. Felt unproductive after. Wished I had charged my laptop so I could finish my homework on train.” I made sure to include descriptions of my context and feeling so I could capture causes and patterns for my models. For example, I noticed that across both days, whenever I was in transit (e.g. in uber, friend’s car or Caltrain), I scrolled on Reels the longest and became unaware of my surroundings and how quickly time passed by. If I forgot to make a log entry, I would make an estimate of when and how long I scrolled on Reels for or visit the “Screen Time” section in the iPhone settings app which shows when I opened Instagram and for how long.
Model 1
The green arrows represent positive relationships (A causes B) and the red arrow represents negative relationships (A causes not B).
Model 2
Main Learnings
My main learnings were that in certain environments, I’m significantly more likely to open Instagram Reels and scroll for a longer time. When I’m bored and have extra time (e.g. during transit, as soon as I wake up, before going to bed, or waiting in line), I tend to scroll for longer. I also noticed that I spent more time scrolling on Day 1 than Day 2. My hypothesis was that this wasn’t only due to the fact that I was less busy and had more free time, but my work/class/meetings were relatively spaced out so I’d always have at least 30 minutes in between these events and I would scroll during these breaks. Lastly, I realized that my phone and the Instagram app itself had a lot of mechanisms to tempt me back to watching more Reels. For example, I’d get easily distracted from notifications on my phone or if I was doing a different task on my phone (e.g. checking emails, checking stocks, texting a friend). As for Instagram, watching my friends’ stories or opening a DM also led me to scroll infinitely. Opening the comments in a Reel also took up a lot of time and made me more invested in the content of the videos.
What I would do differently next time
Now that I’ve learned what contexts and environments cause me to scroll on Instagram Reels, I plan to form new positive habits in these same environments. For example, when I’m in the car with my friend, I plan to turn on a podcast or listen to music instead. If I’m on a long Caltrain ride, I’ll make sure to bring a book or a fully charged laptop to work on tasks/homework. I also realized that preventative measures such as turning on Do Not Disturb or Limited Screen Time haven’t helped me as much—I always find a way to ignore these measures since they’re so easy to turn off or override.
