Digital detox
Hi everyone! Today I want to share my approach to what’s often called “digital detox.” It might sound like a cliché from the world of yoga and smoothies, but my experiments have shown that this practice actually has a noticeable positive effect not only on work but also on overall well-being…
Let’s start with some definitions.
A digital detox is usually defined as a period of time when you consciously limit your use of digital devices and the internet. It doesn’t have to be a week spent in a tent without electricity or cell service. Even a lunch break without video streaming services or Telegram chats can be considered a form of digital detox.
Why is it needed?
The flow of information around us is extremely intense. Unfortunately, it negatively impacts both the quality of decisions we make and our lives overall:
- Information Overload: A Decision Making Perspective (2001, link).
Concerns about information overload were raised as early as the early 2000s. This study, which is one of the first I could find on the topic (as the authors themselves state in the abstract), introduces the idea of a third decision-making state — not just “insufficient information” or “sufficient information,” but a new one: information overload. - The effects of information overload on decision quality and cognitive load: An experimental study (2020, link).
This more recent study shows on a larger scale that overload, particularly with useless information, significantly undermines the decision-making process. - Information overload in the information age: a review of the literature from business administration, business psychology, and related disciplines with a bibliometric approach and framework development (link).
This paper provides a solid review of the literature on the topic (mostly from a business perspective).
The experiments discussed in these papers typically focus only on information directly related to the decision at hand — for example, financial reports, market data, competitor growth forecasts, etc., in the context of business and management decisions. At first glance, this might seem far removed from everyday life. However, difficulties in decision-making under information overload are fundamentally tied to the strain placed on our cognitive resources.
There are simply limits to how much information we can effectively process — and this applies not just to business management.
When we consume unlimited amounts of content from social media, we become similarly overwhelmed: our concentration decreases, our depth of thinking suffers, and we experience what’s known as FOMO — Fear Of Missing Out.
If the information is negative (and recommendation algorithms tend to serve us negative content because it drives more user engagement), then our emotional well-being also comes under threat.
The studies mentioned above propose different strategies for dealing with information overload. Some suggest developing critical thinking skills; others recommend filtering incoming information.
In this article, I will focus on one particular filtering strategy — deliberately scheduling time slots with no information consumption at all.
This is what I refer to as digital detox.
My Approach
Let me start with the most important point: no one will take care of your mental well-being except you.
If you feel crushed by an overload of information, if you have to juggle too many tasks at work, and if you’re generally exhausted — it’s pointless to wait and hope things will somehow sort themselves out. What will come on its own is burnout.
Second point: any meaningful change in life requires a plan and clear success criteria to evaluate your results later.
In my case, the working plan wasn’t about doing everything perfectly. It was about cleverly tricking my own laziness, inertia — or whatever you want to call that part of us that resists change.
Here’s my “survivor’s bias” in action: You don’t need to “start a brand-new life on Monday and live differently every day after that.” Such radical starts are not sustainable. It’s better to act in small steps — like today, simply turning off your phone for 15 minutes during your lunch break. Yes, it’s a trick on yourself: you convince your brain that 15 minutes won’t change anything, so why not try? This way, you avoid falling into the trap of endlessly finding excuses like “I’ll start my new life tomorrow.”
With this “deceptive” plan, success criteria are based on measurable outcomes.
For example, say right now you spend about 12 hours a day in front of a screen (yes, you need to measure it first — otherwise, you won’t have a reliable baseline). Your task could be to reduce that to at least 10 hours a day.
That’s your metric for success.
I’ve read and tested a lot of different tips and strategies. Let me share what actually worked for me — and what didn’t.
Banning Screens Before Bed
In discussions about sleep quality and tips for “digital detox,” the same advice often comes up: limit the use of electronic devices before bed (or even in general life).
In my case, this is difficult. I work in front of a screen, watch movies on a screen, and read from a screen.
Maybe for some people this advice works, but I couldn’t manage to implement it myself.
I tried going for walks before bed, even without music or audiobooks — but it didn’t help me settle down right away. Walking actually made me feel more energized.
So while it might work as a form of detox, it had a negative effect on my sleep.
I also tried switching to paper books.
But I don’t really have space to store them, physical copies are expensive, they take time to deliver, and often I simply don’t have one nearby when I need it — so this option didn’t work for me either.
In the end, screens stayed in my life right up until bedtime.
Gadget-Free Zones
Another common piece of advice is to set up a space at home where gadgets aren’t allowed — for example, to ban smartphones in the bedroom or at the dining table.
Honestly, I couldn’t stick to this either, mostly for the same reasons I mentioned with screens before bed.
Sometimes I read from my phone to fall asleep.
Sometimes there are genuinely important things that need to be handled in the evening, and it’s easier to text someone from bed.
In short, there are just too many exceptions.
What I have managed to do — more or less — is avoid grabbing my phone when I’m talking to people face-to-face.
I try to stick to this as a basic rule of good manners.
Limiting Time on Social Media
When you break down where your screen time actually goes, it turns out that most of it — in my case — is spent on work. I started with the idea that work time couldn’t be reduced. The next biggest chunk on the list was social media and Telegram. That seemed like a good place to start.
I know plenty of people who find it helpful to install apps that track and limit the time spent on certain services.
But that approach didn’t work for me. I know how to turn those apps off. Even when I tell myself not to open social media, there’s always this feeling that something really important is happening right now… You get the idea.
And I realized something important: The solution isn’t to just free up time from social media — it’s to fill my time with other activities so that there’s simply no time left for social media.
An Offline Hobby
This is the main piece of advice that really worked for me — it turned me from an office chair potato into a somewhat active person who now spends far less time in front of screens than most of my colleagues.
I gradually started incorporating simple physical activities into my life — biking, skating, and so on.
Not all at once, but little by little.
Here’s how it happened:
Some friends were looking for someone to take an unused bike off their hands — I took it and started riding.
At first, just for casual rides, and then later as a means of transportation.
I’m good at navigating the “urban jungle,” so whenever I’m biking, it’s naturally gadget-free time.
Summer ended, and autumn came. It got too cold for biking. But when winter arrived, a decent ice rink opened near my house. I quickly bought a pair of skates and started relearning the skills I had as a kid. Now, pure “detox” doesn’t quite happen here — I don’t like the music they play at the rink, so I usually listen to my own playlists through headphones. Still, I’m not working, not reading news — and in my opinion, that counts as digital detox too.
The story didn’t end with biking and skating, but I won’t dive too deep into the details here.
The important thing is: hobbies like these make you spend more time outdoors — and during that time, you simply can’t look at a screen. Win-win! Depending on the type of hobby, you can stay away from gadgets for a small part of the day, for the entire weekend, or even for a whole vacation week.
Results
Early on in my experiments, I noticed that a one-time “digital detox” doesn’t have much of an impact on overall well-being.
However, small, consistent lifestyle changes do significantly boost productivity. For the results to become noticeable without close scrutiny, you need to reach a certain “critical mass” of these changes. In simple terms, taking 15 minutes away from your smartphone every day doesn’t really make a difference. But spending all your weekends in a month away from screens radically changes how you approach work and how efficiently your brain handles tasks.
I tried different detox strategies. Regularity matters, but it’s not critical. For me, both approaches work equally well: either 1–2 hours of “mental air time” each day, or a full screen-free weekend once a week (in the second case, daily breaks aren’t necessary). The important thing is not to “over-rest.” If you spend two weeks completely offline, you’ll have a hard time remembering what your job even was.
Overall, it has become much easier for me to focus on complex tasks. It feels like I can now hold more details in my working memory. I approach both work and even doomscrolling on social media with much more calmness. That sense of calm — along with getting more fresh air — has noticeably improved my sleep quality.
I don’t know how accurate smartwatches are, but the share of deep sleep increased, and I feel much better in the mornings, even when waking up to an alarm. Plus, my physical fitness has improved — eventually, the hours spent moving around do translate into a better quality of life.
What Still Doesn’t Work
All these time management tricks haven’t helped me balance work and personal life. I can, by prior agreement, take a slightly longer lunch break, as long as I make up for it by working later into the evening — and I actually like that.
More and more literature lately suggests that the so-called “work-life balance” is just a myth. In reality, we are constantly choosing what matters more to us at any given moment — professional tasks or personal life. It’s not about some idealized balance. No external rule says we must dedicate exactly three hours a day to family time.
