Going into 2026, I made a couple of resolutions. The first, and most urgent, is to cut back on the time I spend on my phone. Specifically, the time I spend scrolling through Instagram and, to a lesser extent, Facebook (thankfully I remain mostly bewildered by X/Bluesky/Threads, and unwilling to download TikTok, so the gravitational forces currently being exerted on my attention are less overwhelming than they could be). I never picked up the habit of watching Reels, so my Instagram use is more about constant checking than getting sucked into rabbit holes, although I do get hooked by those posts that are just 20 screenshots of other people’s tweets and memes, and will look up from ten or fifteen minutes of reading those with a feeling of dazed embarrassment, hoping nobody saw. Which nobody did, because everyone else is looking at their phone, too.

I know it’s not just me feeling this way: everywhere I look, everyone I talk to is sharing their disgust with social media, their tips for putting down the phone, their pointers on preserving your peace. For me, it’s not about getting burned out on news—though that happens, and maybe we’ll talk soon about ICE murdering Renee Good, which has compromised my will both to resist social media and to live in this country—it’s more about the slow demolition of my cognitive faculties. When I look back over the decades since we first got internet, and then cellphones, laptops, smartphones, and social media, I can see how my once-formidable powers of concentration have crumbled. My working memory is practically nonexistent, because I have an external memory drive in my hand all day long: no more remembering strings of numbers, or lists of items, or holding the three things I wanted to talk to someone about in my mind, because I can put it all into my phone—although odds are I will already have forgotten why I picked up the phone in the first place before I get the screen unlocked. No more hanging onto a question and looking it up at the library or in a textbook—now I google things the instant they pop into my head, get a specific answer, and look no further…rarely stumbling across any fascinating surprises along the way. Once upon a time, I had dozens of phone numbers memorized; today I have two. But I have *three* kids! Seriously, though, it’s much more than not remembering phone numbers (which, to be sure, is a huge fucking problem the minute you lose your phone)—it’s losing the ability to focus on a piece of writing for hours at a time; to bring together disparate ideas into a surprising and coherent whole; to think deeply about complex issues and examine them from multiple perspectives, rather than sifting through simplistic, binary pronouncements of 120 characters or less to figure out which side you’re on. And I don’t know whether it’s getting older, or living through the last six years, or living through this past year in particular, but words are evaporating from my brain at an alarming rate, and I have to believe that staring at my phone has a part in that, as well.

I have other resolutions in mind—going to bed earlier and getting up earlier, which I think will help me work more and eat less, another 2026 aspiration; there are projects I’d like to tackle around my house; and as I’ve said, I want to start sharing my writing publicly for real, finally, rather than just with a small cohort of people I trust. Which brings me to what we’re doing here, starting another blog. The first Make It Stop! was mainly about the day-to-day experience of being a stay-at-home mom of three, with lots of political commentary thrown in for good measure (and what a treat it is to revisit those posts now and see what we were outraged about back in 2010! How did my kids manage to summon such spleen toward Mitt Romney of all innocuous Mormons?!). Things in this country have, shall we say, deteriorated since those halcyon days, and a lot of people are rightly alarmed. I think a big piece of the collective horror over how our phones have taken over our lives has to do with the realization that in-person community is both essential to survival and desperately neglected in this country, and I think real writing (as opposed to shit-posting) is a better strategy for rebuilding.

Because here’s one of the worst things about social media: it enables you to feel like you’re doing something without actually doing anything. I’m not pointing fingers here; I adore screaming into the void, rage-posting at the people who piss me off, and savoring the illusion that those people have read my words and are now bitterly rethinking their entire worldviews. But I don’t delude myself that it really accomplishes anything. I know nobody’s mind has ever been changed by a post they saw on Instagram. And obviously, social media has its place: much of the popular outrage about and activism against this regime’s draconian immigration tactics have been spurred by the videos people have posted online, documenting ICE’s barbarity. One day, insha’allah, those videos will be entered as evidence for tribunals. And lots of people rely on socials to promote their work and make connections—I hope to be one of them. But all those hours spent scrolling and sharing are hours that could be devoted to actual activism. To volunteering at food banks, or walking kids to school if their parents are afraid to leave the house, or calling lawmakers, or attending protests. There are a zillion different valuable ways to contribute to the resistance, but I think it’s safe to say that we need a whole lot more human participation IRL and a lot less shit-posting on Insta.

So here are my INS for 2026—

                        –Concentration

                        –Critical thinking

                        –Creativity

                        –Connection

And here are my OUTS—

                        –Ever using that motherfucker’s name here

                        –Constant social media checking

                        –Reacting

                        –Reposting

I’m not yet prepared to quit rage posting. There are too many people I’m mad at.

            Here’s what I’ve done so far: first and foremost, I’ve stopped picking up my phone the minute I open my eyes in the morning. It’s still by my bedside, and I do check my texts when I wake up because I have a child several time zones away who often texts me while I’m asleep. But I don’t open anything else; I get up, get my coffee, move around, greet the day. I still read Heather Cox Richardson because she’s been how I start my day for too many years now to let that go yet, but after I finish her letter I’ve been sitting down to write (after putting my phone somewhere else that I can’t see or hear it). This change along is already paying off: I was awake for two whole hours last weekend before I found out we’d kidnapped Maduro! I feel like I’m off to a good start. Insha’allah, the ripple effects will benefit more than just me. What are any of you doing to reduce your screen time these days? And what are your resolutions?