Posted in Essay — 02 Aug 2022

Writing Instead Of Scrolling

A simple idea, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFvdHfhVIsQ">stollen from YouTuber Struthless</a> to replace what is ultimately bad for me, with something that is better. He replaced Social media with ‘micro-journalling’ to improve his mental health and found some exceptional benefits, so for the last couple of days I have replaced <a href="https://micro.gregmorris.co.uk/2022/07/31/of-course-i.html">my doom scrolling</a> with writing.To succeed, let's face it a task like this <a href="https://gregmorris.co.uk/blog/twitter-muscle-memory/">isn’t as easy as it seems</a>, I needed to make some modifications to the way my phone works. I am not actively avoiding Social Media (AKA Quitting) I am just limiting it. So, I had to make sure I wouldn’t open up Twitter without realising it, and pack my home screen full of the types of apps I wanted to use instead.<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://gregmorris.co.uk/content/images/2025/10/f05a77c833-jpg.png" class="kg-image" alt loading="lazy" /></figure><a href="https://gregmorris.co.uk/blog/my-reading-flow/">Reading</a> and <a href="https://gregmorris.co.uk/blog/my-writing-workflow/">writing</a> in all its forms went right on my home screen to make sure they are in my face as much as possible. I am trying to make as much use of <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205773">Apple Notes</a> as possible to capture anything and everything that comes to mind. Having already started to lean heavily on it as part of improving my <a href="https://gregmorris.co.uk/blog/putting-a-system-in-place/">overall systems,</a> the <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/ipad/ipad5d91fd88/ipados">quick note function</a> coming to iPhone with iOS16 is a particular favourite new feature.This didn’t work straight away, I had to delete all the social apps from my phone too, and also make sure I was signed out in Safari too. Now whenever I get the itch or find myself a bit bored instead of drifting away and scrolling social media, I write or read something instead. One often leads to the other and a few minutes down the line the feelings have, thankfully, gone.There’s a habit of these types of posts to be preachy, but there is none of that here. This is simply what I am doing to better my day-to-day life. Again, this isn’t about avoiding social media, it is just me trying to be happier and at the same time write more – win-win.