_edited.png){kind=small}
30 Things to Do Instead of Scrolling
There is a particular moment when scrolling stops being interesting but continues anyway. I notice it when I have been looking at my phone long enough that I am no longer especially curious about what appears next. I have read something, followed something else, moved through photographs and fragments of other people's days, and somewhere along the way the original reason for picking up the phone has disappeared. Perhaps there never was one. Still, the thumb continues.
Eventually I put the phone down and experience the strange sensation of returning to the room. Nothing has changed while I was gone. The cup beside me is slightly colder. The light may have moved across the floor. Somebody elsewhere in the house has continued doing whatever they were doing. A few minutes have passed, or considerably more than a few, and I am left with the vague feeling that I was searching for something I did not find.
We explored that question in I Am Tired of Scrolling: What Are We Actually Looking For? — the possibility that our phones have become somewhere we go whenever the day leaves an opening. Sometimes we genuinely want what we find there. Sometimes the hand simply knows the way.
But knowing why we scroll does not necessarily answer the more practical question that follows. What do we do instead?
The internet has plenty of answers. We can learn a language, reorganise the kitchen, begin a creative project, exercise, meditate, bake something or finally attend to whichever neglected corner of life has been quietly waiting for us. Before long, putting down the phone begins to sound suspiciously like another opportunity for self-improvement. I am not sure we need one.
The alternative to scrolling does not always need to be better for us, make us healthier, more creative or impressively analogue. Sometimes we simply need somewhere else for our attention to go. And sometimes we might discover that it does not need to go anywhere at all.
When You Have Only a Few Minutes
A few minutes can be surprisingly difficult to leave empty. They are too short to begin anything substantial and yet long enough to feel available, which makes them perfect scrolling territory. We reach for a phone while waiting for the kettle, before leaving the house, when somebody else has gone to find something or during that peculiar interval after arriving early.
Rather than finding a new activity to fill these moments, I like the idea of allowing some of them to remain small.
1. Look out of the window until you notice one thing you had not seen before. Not the entire view. One thing. Perhaps rain has collected somewhere unusual, a branch is moving while the others remain still, or somebody has left a gate open across the road. You do not have to make the observation meaningful. Just notice it.
2. Finish the drink you are already drinking. There is something slightly absurd about making tea and then forgetting it while looking at a screen. Sit with the cup until it is empty, even if nothing accompanies it.
3. Step outside and find out what the weather actually feels like. A forecast can tell you the temperature, but not quite how the air feels when you stand in it. Stay for a minute. Then go back inside if you want to.
4. Let the kettle boil. Do not improve the minute. Don't wipe the bench, answer something or find another task. The kettle is already doing the only thing that needs to happen.
5. Watch what is happening nearby. If you are waiting somewhere, resist the urge to search for a more interesting place through your screen. There may be nothing remarkable where you are. See what happens anyway.
These are barely activities at all. That is rather the point. The first alternative to scrolling may simply be relearning how to inhabit a few minutes that do not have a purpose.
Things to do Instead of Scrolling When Your Hands Want Something to Do
There are other times when doing nothing feels entirely wrong. The mind may be tired while the hands are restless. This is one reason a phone is so easy to reach for: it gives the fingers something to do while requiring almost no preparation. The best alternative in these moments is something equally accessible. Not a new hobby with twelve pieces of equipment. Something already waiting.
6. Mend one small thing. Sew the loose button back onto the shirt rather than creating an afternoon of mending. One object, returned to use.
7. Make a page in a commonplace book. Copy down a sentence you want to keep, a word you recently discovered or something you have been thinking about. The page does not need decoration unless decorating it is the part you enjoy.
8. Sharpen the pencils in the pencil jar. There is no deeper lesson here. Blunt pencils are nicer when they are sharp.
9. Untangle something. A necklace, a piece of wool, the inexplicable knot in a drawstring. Choose something with a visible ending and stop when you reach it.
10. Prepare something for later. Not in the spirit of getting ahead. Shell the peas because peas need shelling, fill the vase because the flowers are already there, or wash the fruit you brought home. Let the task remain as ordinary as it is.
I think activities involving the hands feel different when we do not immediately ask them to become hobbies. There is no need to become a person who mends because you repaired one button. You do not need a beautiful notebook system because you copied a paragraph onto paper. You can simply do the thing and then stop.
When You Want to Go Somewhere Else
Sometimes scrolling is a form of leaving. The room feels dull. The afternoon has stalled. We have been looking at the same walls for too long, and the phone offers immediate passage into lives and places considerably more varied than our own.
On those days, I don't think we always need to resist the desire to go somewhere else. We might simply go somewhere.
11. Walk to the end of your street without turning it into exercise. You can come straight home afterwards. The purpose is only to see what is there today.
12. Take the long way to somewhere you were already going. One different street can be enough to make a familiar journey visible again.
13. Visit the library without deciding beforehand what you want. Wander one section slowly and let a spine, title or cover interrupt you.
14. Sit somewhere you normally pass. A bench is an invitation most of us ignore unless we are tired. Sit before you need to.
15. Follow something that makes you curious. A path you have never taken, the sound of birds gathering somewhere nearby, the little track leading away from the main one. You don't need to go far.
The world close to home is rarely spectacular enough to compete with a screen designed to show us an endless succession of interesting things. It has another advantage. We can enter it.
Sometimes leaving the screen means accepting a smaller world for a while, only to discover that smaller does not necessarily mean less detailed.
When You Are Looking for Company
Not every scroll is boredom. Sometimes we are lonely. This is worth acknowledging because advice about spending less time online can become strangely dismissive of the very real relationships that exist there. A person living far from family may depend upon a screen to remain part of their everyday lives. Friendships can begin online and matter enormously. There are days when a message arriving at the right moment changes the shape of an afternoon.
The answer to every reach for connection is not to put the phone away. But occasionally we are moving through hundreds of people when what we really want is one.
16. Send a message to the person you were actually hoping to hear from. Leave the feed and speak directly.
17. Ask somebody in the house if they want a cup of tea. Then, if they say yes, stay while you drink it.
18. Call someone without needing news. A conversation does not require an announcement to justify itself.
19. Write a postcard. There is only enough room for a small piece of life. Tell somebody what the day looks like where you are and send it before you can make the words important.
20. Sit near someone while you each do your own thing. Company does not always require conversation. Sometimes it is enough to share a room.
There is a difference between seeing people and being with someone. Both have their place. It can simply be useful to know which one we were looking for.
When You Want a Story
Perhaps you don't want to be productive, observant or social. Perhaps you want to disappear for a while. I understand this particularly well because stories are one of the ways I have always liked to leave my own life without actually abandoning it. There are evenings when I don't want to examine the present moment more closely. I would rather enter another one entirely.
A phone can certainly take us elsewhere, but scrolling often carries us through dozens of worlds without allowing us to remain in any of them for long. A story asks us to stay.
21. Read one short story. Not because you have promised yourself you will read more. Choose something short enough to finish and give it the whole piece of time.
22. Listen to someone tell you a story. Put the phone down if you can and let it become only a voice for a while.
23. Read a few pages of a book you already love. You don't always need a new story. Familiarity is part of the pleasure.
24. Open a book at random and read until something catches you. This works particularly well with collections of essays, poetry, folklore or short fiction. Let chance choose the doorway.
25. Tell somebody a story you remember. Not a fictional one necessarily. Tell them about something that happened before they knew you, or ask them for one in return.
Stories give attention somewhere to settle. They do not demand that we remain in our own thoughts, nor do they scatter us across hundreds of unrelated ones. For a little while, there is simply a path to follow. Sometimes that is exactly what I was hoping to find when I began scrolling.
When Nothing Sounds Appealing
There are evenings when every alternative sounds faintly irritating. I do not want to walk. I don't want to mend anything. I have no desire to write a letter, read a worthy book or gaze appreciatively at the weather. If somebody presented me with a list of enriching screen-free activities, I would probably pick up my phone simply to escape them.
These are the most interesting moments. Because instead working out things to do instead of scrolling there is another possibility. Nothing.
26. Be bored for ten minutes. Not indefinitely. Ten minutes is enough. See whether boredom remains the same shape all the way through.
27. Lie down without calling it rest. You do not have to sleep, meditate or recover effectively. The ceiling can have your attention for a while.
28. Sit outside after dark. Let your eyes adjust before deciding there is nothing to see.
29. Leave the room quiet. No podcast, television, music or conversation for a little while. Notice how quickly the urge arrives to put something into the silence.
30. Do absolutely nothing until you naturally want to do something.
The last one may be the hardest. Not because doing nothing is inherently virtuous, but because we have become extraordinarily good at preventing the moment in which desire has to arise by itself.
If entertainment is always immediately available, we rarely have to discover what we might choose after boredom. Perhaps nothing happens or after seven minutes you pick the phone up again. That is allowed. This is not a test of character.
You Do Not Need Thirty New Things to Do
There is a danger in a list like this. We can take thirty alternatives to scrolling and turn them into thirty more things we ought to be doing.
Now the phone is down, but apparently we should be writing letters, repairing clothes, reading literature, visiting libraries and developing a meaningful relationship with the weather. It is enough to make scrolling seem restful.
That is not what I mean. Most of these things are deliberately small because the moments they are replacing are small too. You do not need a screen-free lifestyle. You do not have to give up your phone, rediscover every old-fashioned hobby or turn evenings into beautifully analogue experiences.
The phone is useful. Sometimes it is delightful and scrolling is exactly what we feel like doing, and I see little value in making ourselves guilty for that.
I am interested in the moments when it isn't. The moments when the thumb keeps moving after curiosity has gone. Perhaps, when that happens, we can put the phone down before deciding what comes next.
Continue with The Lost Art of Slow Living
If this way of thinking about everyday life feels familiar, The Lost Art of Slow Living is a free 50-page illustrated book-a-zine about noticing more, living a little more slowly and rediscovering life beyond the screen.
Comments