Masuk Free Press

The average teenager spends about three hours on social media per day. This logs us at 90 hours per month, and 1080 average hours per year. This brings us to an average of 45 days wasted per year on social media. I am no different than the average teenager. Somehow while actively participating in sports, a job, and schoolwork, I manage to spend almost 5 hours on my phone every day. This puts me above the average, and I waste 75 days a year on my phone.

As a young person in the “prime of my life,” I concluded that my addictive behavior was no longer appropriate. Unfortunately, I found myself without the necessary drive and willpower to make a change. Luckily, I got the shove I needed, as while scrolling TikTok, I came across an advertisement for a screen management app, Screen Zen. 

Screen Zen advertised itself as a “screen mindfulness” moderator, created to wean young addicts off of their screens.

When you open Screen Zen for the first time, you customize the app to your preferences. First, you must choose which apps to block, to which I chose my heavy hitters, TikTok and Instagram. Then, you have to decide how long you want your screen sessions to be. I, perhaps too ambitiously, chose ten minutes. You also have to select how many times you will allow yourself on the app a day, and I chose three. 

For most screen time apps, this would be about it, but Screen Zen takes it a step further. Before you are allowed access to the app, you are forced to pause. Screen Zen displays a personalized message that you are forced to consider for 60 seconds before the app unlocks for you. I chose what I felt was the most aggressive one: Is this Important? You are forced to stare at this message for a full minute before the app unlocks for you. 

This forced introspection is meant to make you question your actions. Do I want to be on TikTok this badly? Is this really that important?

For a teenager going through withdrawal, it was, and I stared at the message for the full minute waiting for my screen time. Yes, the wait made me antsy, but nevertheless, I persisted. 

My plan of restraint was easygoing on Saturday when I was constantly up and out of the house. While my mind was occupied, I was not thinking about scrolling. In the odd moments I would usually turn on TikTok, I moved to long-form content to fill the time. While I was still on a screen, long-form content, such as a YouTube video, was a drastic improvement from mind-numbing short form.

It was Sunday when my struggles began. On the classically slower day, I did not have as much to do, and I found myself with far too much downtime and less than enough TikTok. I used up my allotted time too quickly, and desperate for entertainment, I turned to the unthinkable: Snapchat Explore and Facebook Reels.

Opening Facebook and unironically watching the reels was one of the lowest points I have ever reached in my life. I knew I was wasting my time, and I knew I was not enjoying what I was watching, but yet I was glued to my screen anyway.

Unable to handle YouTube Shorts any longer, I began to unravel. Upon exploring the app further, I found a button that turns off all app limitations for sixty minutes. Once I found this button, there was no stopping me. My relapse officially began. 

I started making excuses; allowing myself free rein of the app past eleven p.m., and allowing myself an hour of TikTok time as a reward for a productive homework session. 

The slips back into my habit were satisfying, but also a reminder of why I was trying to withdraw in the first place. While social media can sometimes be a place of vibrant collaboration and inspiration, it took me only ten minutes back on TikTok to be subject to a For You Page full of unsettling true crime. After a few days of detox, this content, which normally would have gone over my head in a TikTok-induced haze, unsettled me enough to turn me off the app for the night.

Still, I allowed myself these little cheat sessions, and it all came to a head one morning when after seeing the nagging “Is This Important” message, I swiped quickly out of TikTok and deleted Screen Zen once and for all.

This test of my willpower has yielded mortifying results, and I am truly not proud of the depths of my compulsions. Do I think I could have conducted this detox differently and yielded better results? Yes.

I think I was overly ambitious and unrealistic with my ten-minute session times. For an addicted teen, only getting ten minutes felt practically the same as going cold turkey. I also allowed myself other forms of screen time, so I was taking time away from my phone to spend some time with my other screens. 

Sure, there is something to be said about the quality difference between TikTok and YouTube, but watching Britney Broski play Roblox could not have been much of a step up from the for you page.

My experiment was a failure. My screen time remains sky-high, and my time continues to slip away. I have yet to figure out the best method of screen management, and for the time being, I will try to learn balance. Instead of decompressing on my phone, I should prioritize connecting elsewhere. Social media won’t kill you, but like all things, is best in moderation.