In a series of six posts, I explain how teachings from early Buddhist scriptures can help us break free from social media addiction. These insights are derived from the Vitakkasanthana Sutta, which outlines five strategies for overcoming persistent urges and thoughts.
The Buddha advises us to work through these tools in sequence. If shifting our focus to positive things doesn’t work, we then look at the drawbacks of our addiction. If that still fails, we move to the next strategy—simply ignoring and forgetting whatever we’re obsessed with, which we’re exploring today.
The guidance in the scripture is concise: if bad, unskillful thoughts connected to desire, hate, and delusion keep arising, we should simply ignore and forget them. While this might sound easier said than done, it’s very practical advice about reducing temptation.
First, let’s consider our external activities. To avoid falling into social media addiction, we need to change our habits around it. For example, if you want to lose weight but can’t resist potato chips, it’s better not to have them in the house or to avoid the snack aisle in the supermarket. Similarly, moving social media apps from the main screen of your phone to secondary screens, and turning off notifications can help you resist the temptation to check them frequently.
Placing your phone out of sight, such as not keeping it at your bedside at night, can also be effective. Charge your phone in another room and use an alarm clock instead. This way, your first instinct in the morning or during the night won’t be to check your phone. Turning off your phone while it charges overnight can create a useful barrier too, taking advantage of our natural laziness by making it slightly harder to go online impulsively.
Morning habits can set the tone for the rest of your day. Without immediate access to your phone, you might be more inclined to meditate or read a book, which helps train your mind to focus and develop concentration.
Creating phone-free time during meals or other activities can also be beneficial. Some people have fun rules like making everyone stack their phones on the table during a meal, and anyone who picks up their phone has to pay for the whole meal.
Meditation retreats offer another chance to disconnect from social media. Some retreats require you to hand in your phone, but even if they don’t, you could leave it somewhere out of reach.
Now, let’s talk about what we can do internally. There are two ways to use our eyes: focusing narrowly on a specific object, or having a soft, wide focus that takes in the whole visual field. When we relax our eyes, our body and mind also tend to relax. This wider, softer vision helps us to become less caught up in our thoughts and more aware of our surroundings.
In meditation, when our eyes are tense and our focus is narrow, our attention tends to jump between body sensations and distracting thoughts. However, when we relax our gaze, our attention widens and our mind feels more nourished, making it easier for thoughts to arise and pass without getting caught up in them.
This approach helps us manage urges to check social media. By maintaining a soft gaze and open attention, it becomes easier to let such urges rise and fall without acting on them. This is similar to the concept of “urge surfing,” where you observe an urge build and then diminish, rather than assuming it will keep growing until it overwhelms you.
What did we learn? First, managing our external environment—like reorganizing our phone apps and creating phone-free times—can help us reduce distractions. Second, adopting a soft, wide focus with our eyes can help us better manage our internal urges and thoughts. By making these changes, we can start freeing ourselves from addictive patterns of behavior and thought.