I am chronically online and don't know how to stop

^{By Lisa Kreviski}

Hi, my name is Lisa and I am chronically online.

I say it out loud sometimes, like an introduction. Except the room is empty. No folding chairs, no sign-in sheet, no sponsor waiting to smile at me. Just me, talking to four walls and the faint buzz of a phone lighting up beside me.

I half-wish there was a program for this. A place where people like me could show up and admit we can’t stop. Where we’d talk about how we’ve lost years to screens, how we fall asleep to strangers’ voices on TikTok, how we can’t go ten minutes without checking if someone texted. If this were a real meeting, this is the part where I’d tell you how many days I’ve been “sober.” But I can’t. I’ve never had a single day clean.

Because that’s what this is: a life swallowed by a screen.

The loop

My day starts before I even open my eyes. The phone is there, glowing on the nightstand, already whispering: check me. I scroll before I sit up. Notifications stacked like unopened mail. TikTok first, then Instagram, then a quick scan of texts, then back to TikTok. By the time I finally swing my legs out of bed, the day has already started without me.

I work from home, which means I walk fifteen steps to my desk. It should make my life easier, but instead it’s made me more available, more scattered, less grounded. I check my phone at least eight times an hour, sometimes more. Slack notifications blur with Instagram likes blur with a group chat blowing up. The tabs in my brain never close.

At five, I’m technically done, but the line doesn’t exist anymore. My boss knows I’ll see a Slack message at 8 p.m. if it comes through. I want to say no, but I never actually mute. I just keep the phone close, in case.

Evenings follow a script. Couch. DoorDash. Scroll. A show playing in the background that I’m not actually watching. The phone keeps winning. I get into bed and scroll until the screen is the last light I see.

Weekends are no different. If my partner and I go out on Saturday night, I’ll spend Sunday half-buried in blankets, propped up by pillows, eyes glazed over TikTok. I call it self-care, but it feels more like sedation. The hours dissolve without me noticing.

And the content? It’s not meaningful. One minute I’m watching a girl unbox skincare from a brand I’ve never heard of. The next, I’m three videos deep into relationship drama between strangers. A 17-year-old’s morning routine. A video essay about a show I’ve never seen. A woman whispering into her camera about “lazy girl dinners.” My brain discards it immediately, but my thumb keeps asking for the next hit.

Then vs. now

I keep comparing my days now to the way they used to be.

Ten years ago, my life had structure. I commuted to an office, book in hand. The train was my sanctuary. I’d underline passages, dog-ear pages. Sometimes I’d reread sentences just to hold onto them longer.

At work, I sat at a desktop. My phone was just a phone back then—something I checked occasionally, not something glued to my palm. At lunch, I went outside. I ate with coworkers, talked about real things. When the day ended, it ended. I closed my computer, and the rest of my life began.

Evenings had variety. A workout class. A drink with a friend. A walk home, headphones in, city noise blending with music. I’d cook, I’d shower, I’d slide into bed with the same book I’d started that morning. I remember finishing entire novels in a week.

Now, finishing even one feels impossible. Movies stretch too long. Even TV episodes feel like a commitment. Books sit unopened on my nightstand, props for a version of myself I’ve lost.

The contrast makes me sick sometimes.

The collective problem

And I know it’s not just me. I see it everywhere.

Couples sitting across from each other at dinner, heads tilted toward glowing screens. Friends hanging out, each one scrolling something different, laughing into separate worlds. I’ve watched people at concerts film entire songs instead of experiencing them. I’ve done it too.

We scroll in bathrooms. We scroll at red lights. We scroll when someone leaves the room for thirty seconds. We joke about being “chronically online” as if it’s a quirk, a personality trait. We make memes about doomscrolling at 2 a.m. like it’s cute.

I've seriously convinced myself lying in bed with a phone pressed to my face is self-care.

Like, what?

The feelings we don’t name

The truth is, it’s not just wasted time that scares me. It’s what’s happening underneath.

The numbness that comes after hours of scrolling. The low-level anxiety of not knowing what I’ve just consumed. The envy when I watch someone else’s curated life and suddenly feel like mine doesn’t measure up. The exhaustion of being overstimulated but undernourished.

I’ve noticed that after a long scroll, I feel heavier. Not in body—though my back aches from the slouch, my eyes sting, my skin feels tight from the blue light—but in spirit. Like my brain has eaten junk food all day and now wants to lie down.

I tell myself I’m keeping up with the world. That I’m connected. But really, I’ve never been so connected and so alone at the same time.

Little moments of shame

There are small moments I don’t say out loud.

Scrolling in bed next to my partner, both of us silent, not even touching. Pretending to watch a show together, but each of us on our own screen. Picking up my phone while brushing my teeth, foam dripping onto the counter. Unlocking it in the middle of a conversation and realizing too late how rude it looks.

The shame doesn’t stop me. It barely slows me down.

What scares me most

What scares me is the thought that this doesn’t end. That I’ll lose decades this way — years eaten up in fragments, fifteen seconds at a time.

I wonder what I’ll remember. Will I look back and recall the books I never finished? The dinners eaten with one hand scrolling? The countless nights where the glow of a phone was the last light I saw?

I don’t want to live like this, but I also don’t know how to stop. The apps are designed to win, and for me at least, they always do.