Digital Detox (part 2): How to make this New Year’s resolution come true!
Jacqueline Libert | december 18, 2025
New Year’s Eve is the time when you think: this year I’m going to decrease the time I spend on my phone. And yet… on January 2, you’re already on TikTok watching someone quietly copy study notes. This happens because when we become addicted to something, our relationship with it becomes cloudy. You think you’re choosing, but most of the time your thumb chooses for you.
Changing this behavior is made difficult because your phone is everywhere: during class, on the train, next to your bed, on the toilet.. It is the easiest escape. Cal Newport, the author of Digital Minimalism, says that you can only make conscious choices if you stop for a moment. Not because technology is bad, but because otherwise you get stuck in reflexes. That’s why a digital detox helps: you create distance so that you feel what you actually want again, instead of what you do automatically (read more about this “autopilot” in our first blog about Digital Detox).
How do you go about a detox?
According to Cal Newport, a month is best, but feel free to start smaller: a day, a weekend, or a week. Arrange it practically:
- What do you really need for study or group projects? Canvas? Mail? A group app? Make it as simple as possible
- Tell people that you are less online and how they can possibly reach you (yes, old-school calling is still possible)
- Find a detox buddy and/or ask your housemates to join you
- And most importantly, before you start, think about what you’re going to do if you’re not scrolling. Without an alternative, you automatically slide back. Think of:
- walking or getting coffee with someone
• cooking, listening to music, reading
• exercising, journaling, doing something creative
• planning an outing/activity that you have normally only watched repeatedly as a TikTok video (if you keep watching someone cook spaghetti at a campsite in Norway, you might want to plan a trip yourself)
- Despite your good preparation, there will undoubtedly come a time when you will experience discomfort because you still want to grab your phone. Although looking for distractions can work, this is also a good time to practice exploring and experiencing that discomfort. Here’s how:
- Set a timer for 5 minutes (clearly delineating provides safety)
- Notice: where in your body do you feel the need to grab your phone? Where do you feel the discomfort? How does it feel?
- Breathe towards the feeling and stay with it, without having to change anything
- Observe what happens for a few minutes: does the feeling stay the same, does something change?
- Ask yourself: what do I actually need? What are you looking for in that phone? Maybe it’s entertainment, distraction, comfort. Explore what other way you could give that to yourself
- When the timer goes off you can let go of this and give yourself a pat on the back! By practicing experiencing discomfort, you increase your resilience
What do you actually want?
Now that you have some distance, this is a good time to explore your motivations for using technology. Instead of starting with: “Which apps do I want to keep?”, it is better to start with: “What do I find important in my life?”. Think of connection, inspiration, peace, creativity, fun, focus. Only then comes the question: What is the best way to get it?
- Need a connection? Meeting up, walking, cooking together or calling often gives much more than 30 snaps with half a selfie
- Are you looking for inspiration? You might find it better in a conversation, a book, a lecture, a sport or a hobby than in an endless scrolling session on Pinterest
- Do you want to relax? Then walking, music, journaling or making something usually help more than another 20 minutes of scrolling.
Make a conscious decision about which apps you want to keep using, why, and how. Perhaps you find that for you Pinterest provides you with a lot of inspiration, but that the connection you’re looking for on Snapchat doesn’t really feel fulfilling. You might then decide you’ll keep using Pinterest on a daily basis, but that you’ll replace Snapchat with in-person meetings at least 3 days per week. This is just an example, see what feels good for you and what contributes to your happiness in the long run.
Keeping in mind what’s important
Finally, making an effort is not always fun, but it does pay off. Think about why you want to do this detox in advance, and write it down somewhere to remind yourself in difficult moments. In any case, what we all know is that the moments we think back to at the end of the year and are proud of or were happy with, are actually never the moments when you scrolled thoughtlessly. We really don’t have to throw our phone out the window, but we can examine our relationship with it and make conscious choices about it. Life is fun, with and occasionally without a phone.
