In today's world, things are getting particularly hard to get done. Unless you're some impossibly focused person, you might find it difficult to complete a piece of work in one sitting without being distracted way too often. It is also much more harder for people on the spectrum.

It is no secret that apps and social media of today have been designed in such a way that they fend off your dopamine hits. As the famous saying from a Netflix documentary goes, "If you're not paying for the product, then you're the product".

But you know, these apps when developed for the first time were not intentionally attention suckers. They contain so much information that we really should not be ignoring. But esentially, in the beginning, they really had only one feature (as a whole):

• YouTube: Share and watch videos from people over the internet
• Instagram: Share and see photos of our friends

I believe when we take these applications to the core, rudimentary purpose of theirs, it is really not that hard to keep ourselves in control of their usage.

So here is the trick: Have an aim!

When you're about to click on the app, think to yourself, "what am I going to do here?". It will help you to limit the mindless scrolling and rabbit hole we usually don't want to fall into in the first place.

Whenever you go to YouTube, think to yourself, "I am here to learn Spanish", "I am here to watch 2 videos of MKBHD", "I am here to watch 10 youtube shorts". This will help you be mindful of what you're doing and limit your actions to be just that.
Of course, the recommendations page is enticing because it is made for you. You can put the vidoes in watch later playlist and make another to-do saying, "I will watch 3 videos from my watch later playlist".

Same with Instagram, quantify what you're doing, you will quickly realise the amount of mindless scrolling you would do if you didn't count. Think to yourself "I am here to see the new photo my friend put" and keep it to that. Whatever is not your aim at that moment is not important enough for your time. You always have save later for more important things.

Although, personally, I would just suggest to quit Instagram, it is just trash now.

I am still struggling with my usage of Reddit because it is just a treasure trove of information. But I am trying to limit the dopamine hits by going to the subreddit I want to look at and then finish my need. That limits me from just scrolling my feed mindlessly.

And of course, the best thing to do is to use the web version of all these apps. They cannot be more helpful to break your back and to send signals to your brain to stop. Bed + phone is an infinite time black hole.

Take care folks. Hope this shower thought was as helpful to you as it is going to be for me.