Do you ever find yourself scrambling to get things done? Sometimes, doesn’t it feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day? Well, you’re not alone, and you’re not stuck with this feeling either; you are simply experiencing what is known as time poverty – the acute feeling that you have too much to do, and not enough time to do it.
Time poverty is a term that has gained a lot of traction in online spaces. It was first coined by economist Clair Vickery in 1977. After all, the increase in screen time over the past decade alone surely couldn’t occur without consequence, right? With its increasing popularity, time poverty is something that can affect us all, taking a toll on well-being, physical health, and productivity in a world where attention is becoming currency. Time spent on hobbies and socialising has become conquered by scrolling, and double-thumb-tapping through endless algorithms, eating up our own free time while we barely realise, and getting our brains hooked on instant gratification that can completely obliterate productivity.
In an age of dopamine addiction, it’s no wonder people are feeling starved for time, when everything is trying to take it up and keep you engaged. From clickbait YouTube videos to short-form content that makes you snowball, from ‘just five minutes of reels’ into forty minutes of watching forgettable, unfulfilling media, half of which are ads or paid sponsorships, with platforms relying on your precious viewership to collect revenue from said ads and sponsorships. We’ve all heard the phrase ‘time is money’ and in this current media climate, I think that couldn’t be more true. Not to mention the fact that when everything is said and done, all you have to show for your scrolling habits is a higher screen time.
So what is the solution? Is there a quick fix? Of course, you’d want a quick fix when you feel like you’ve no time to lose, but the reality is you need to change the way you spend your free time and learn how to actually utilise it. For example, try to find hobbies outside of screen time that make you happy and fulfilled, whether that’s sports, casual exercise, reading, or something creative. When you swap scrolling for sketching, singing, cinema, or shin guards, you are swapping screentime for satisfaction and diffusing that feeling of time poverty. Instead of wasting time, you’re spending it. After all, studies show that people with creative and physical hobbies report a higher level of well-being and life satisfaction.
Now, how do you actually start? I know, I know, tackling time poverty and breaking the cycle feels like another thing on the list of things to do in the free time we feel we don’t have, but it’s not as difficult as it may sound, and can have major impacts on your life as well as how you feel about it. Rather than falling for the ‘Dopamine Detox’ propaganda, some notable things to try when managing a dopamine addiction include:
- Slowly decreasing screen time (cold turkey is far too hard for most to maintain in this instance). Start slow by monitoring screen time and gradually decreasing time spent each day, or set a daily screen time cap on apps you find yourself getting lost in. This can be done using Apple’s built-in feature, for iPhone users, and apps such as StayFree for those using Android.
- Staying off your phone for at least an hour when you wake up. Studies show that checking your phone as soon as you wake up can actually increase anxiety, disrupt the sleep-to-wake cycle, decrease focus throughout the day (leading to more boredom scrolling), and elevate dopamine baselines.
- Meditation. We’ve all heard the hype around meditation, and a lot of us are sick of hearing people encourage it but the truth is that a study by the guided meditation app Headspace shows that only 15 minutes of meditation a day can actually help keep you on track in your day to day life, by decreasing mind wandering by up to 22%, and increasing focus levels by 14%.
So next time your thumb hovers over TikTok, remember to stop and think about the bigger picture, break the endless cycle of time poverty you keep finding yourself in, and take back what is rightfully yours – the value of your free time!
