Doomscrolling guilt isn’t about the time spent, it’s about the mind numbing feeling of retaining nothing from it. Sure, deleting and quitting is one solution. But I’d argue you just need a system to digest and remember the great/ helpful/ meaningful content that exists on the app.

Learn while scrolling

Instead of quitting scrolling, make it productive.

When you come across a piece of great content. Instead of scrolling to the next when you finish it. Pause and reflect “why did it speak to me?”, “what were the key points?”. Then save it with a note directly to your home screen where you can easily and casually review it.

This is how you get a return on the time you spend scrolling. You harvest the good content from the internet.

How to try it today

spongee mechanism, one click save to home screen widget

  • Save one thing worth remembering the next time you scroll — something that moved you/ changed the way you see the world/ helped you better understand a topic.
  • Save it with a note to the home screen widget. Writing a note extracts information buried in a content while signalling to the brain that this matters. (Neuroscience: elaborative encoding)
  • Let repetition do the work: seeing it every time you unlock your phone is enough for your brain to gradually internalise it. (Neuroscience: spacing effect)

Spongee is built around exactly this loop. Save great content straight to your homescreen, and let repeated exposure turn it into something you actually remember.