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This summer, I scrolled TikTok, Instagram, and X with no consequences. Basking in a lack of structure, I spent many of my days at home. Now that it’s back-to-school season, I have to re-learn how to balance hundreds of pages of reading, countless group projects, and daily dance rehearsals—I also can no longer deny that I am attached to my phone. 

I got my first iPhone in sixth grade when I started walking home from school alone. I was on social media, namely Instagram, by seventh grade. Most of my Gen Z peers can say the same. Our generation is often described as the “digital natives.”

Using smartphones has been habitual for us since our childhood. Now, the dopamine hits keep us coming back for more. Dopamine controls our pleasure and perception of rewards. It is highly addictive. This is what makes it so hard to stop scrolling: there’s more of a dopamine rush in scrolling to the next TikTok on the For You page than there is in responding to a classmate on a class discussion board. 

I can attest that my phone is always with me. I often pull it out of my pocket and check my notifications without thinking twice. I’ll take a look at Instagram while standing in line in my college’s cafeteria or scroll Pinterest while I am on the MBTA. It’s just so easy. That’s what makes it so hard to stop. 

Dr. Kostadin Kushlev, the leader of Georgetown University’s Digital Health and Happiness Lab, explained why smartphones—rather than computers or other devices—are so addictive. It’s the portability and lack of effort needed to produce a dopamine hit, he said in an interview for Georgetown’s “Ask a Professor” series.

“You’re not taking your computer everywhere with you. Even if you are, it’s a little clunky to take out and check your social media on it, whereas phones are designed to give you that dopamine hit quickly,” Kushlev said.

Here’s the predicament: I can’t just start leaving my phone at home because, as much as it is a distraction, it’s also my lifeline. I use Apple Pay, I want to be able to contact my family and friends, and I don’t have a mental map of Boston’s streets memorized (yet). It would be unrealistic to go without my phone entirely, so I need to implement other strategies to manage my screen time.

Neuroscientist TJ Power spoke to Men’sHealth about phone use and how we can fight the urge to endlessly scroll. 

“The best way to regain control over your phone is when you wake up in the morning, and learn to beat that first check,” Power said, “accomplishment when you wake is essential, and learning to see sunlight before you see social media every morning is the first step,” he added.

While Dr. Kushlev also recommends small changes like Apple’s “Do Not Disturb” and “Reduce Interruptions” features, he ultimately believes that our smartphones must become “psychologically smart” too. 

Companies, not just phone users, need to be responsible for working towards building long-term sustainable relationships with technology, Kushlev explains.

In the meantime, I’m implementing some small-scale tips and strategies to walk back my screen time. Some of these I have ironically found on TikTok, one of the top contributors to high phone use of Gen Z.

I keep “Do Not Disturb” on at almost all times, but especially when I’m in class, with friends or family, and when I’m doing homework. I plan on taking this a step further by removing the feature that shows me how many notifications I have on any given app to reduce the temptation to check everything I’ve missed.

I also have self-implemented daily screen time limits on social media and, even though this doesn’t always work because I know the password to override the block (which is, in hindsight, a paper-thin screen time control strategy), I am at least aware that I’m spending more time than I allotted on these apps. 

Besides making use of these features already built into my iPhone, I’m challenging myself to not immediately respond to boredom by picking up my phone. I don’t need to check my phone in the elevator in between classes, while I’m eating a meal by myself, or going on a walk. I want to be present and spend time with my thoughts rather than drowning them out with the newest trending dance or long drama-filled thread on X. I hope that these changes will start to ease my dependence on my phone, and I’ll find more motivation to focus and seek dopamine through long-term successes, not instant gratification.

As more research is done on digital wellness and customers and companies alike respond accordingly, I hope to adapt a similar motto to Kushlev: “I try to be in control of my phone rather than letting the phone control me,” he said.