Do you find yourself stressing over the amount of work left undone, but you just can't bring yourself to getting it done. Do you feel that there are much better ways to spend your free time, but still end up scrolling social media on your phone all day long? Even worse, you get more and more tired of scrolling your phone but still won't stop.

Little did you know, staying this way is actually quite harmful to your mental health, and could potentially affect your studies, work, and daily life. So, what's going on and what can we do about it?

#Why Don't We Want To Do Anything?

Before trying to solve the problem, let's try to understand it. One of the most obvious reasons we act this way is because of the exhaustion due to the overexposure and overload of information around us. In this day and age, our limited attention is constantly being bombarded by a sea of information.

But, for anything to be meaningfully incorporated into our minds requires longer attention spans. Hence, we don't even bother to carry out an important task as we can't even focus long enough to begin it.

Every time we open Instagram or TikTok, companies and brands compete for our attention with various techniques and flashy imagery. Studies have shown that the general human attention span has been in decline, with an average of 12 seconds in 2000, down to merely 8 seconds in 2015. Evidently, our attention span should be less than 5 seconds these days. 

Not only that, in some cases, the repetitive motion of scrolling social media, looking at similar things over and over again could be a form of concealing one's feelings of emptiness and meaninglessness.

This usually occurs when one is unable to achieve meaningful and significant success in real life, or when one's life is very repetitive. Hence, a virtual world provides an escape for them.

#How To Solve The Problem?

Our solutions will target the root causes one by one. To prevent an information overflow, we could start by intentionally reducing the amount of things we get exposed to. Although it is pretty hard to detach from technology these days, we could reduce the disturbances. 

Start off by turning off unnecessary notifications from the countless apps in your phone or turning on "Do Not Disturb" mode whenever you're working or a few hours before bed. This will reduce the temptation to "check" your phone, which we all know would've inevitably resulted in scrolling social media.

As for the lack of meaning in life or the feeling of emptiness, it is very important to have an end goal to work towards. Whether it is to buy a house, make a million dollars, or to eradicate world hunger, an end goal or mission ensures that you always remember why you started your fight in the first place and give you motivation to get through the tough times.

Plus, you can also split your goals into smaller, achievable mini-goals using the S.M.A.R.T method such that whenever you achieve one of them, you feel a sense of achievement. 

(READ: S.M.A.R.T New Year Resolutions That Are Fail-Proof)

Lastly, it is very important to have pillars of support. Everyone needs some people to fall back on whenever they need help or feel lost. It doesn't even have to be a family member. It could be a friend, teacher, or support group. These could also be the same people that can keep you on your goal or even work towards the goal with you.

Remember that everyone has their own pace, and everyone deserves a break every now and then. Don't beat yourself up too much when you catch yourself "wasting time" instead of doing something meaningful. At the very least, you know something needs to change, and the first step to solving any problem is to realize that it's there.