4 Digital Detox Challenges You Can Try

As spring turns to summer and the weather becomes positively delightful, there are more excuses than ever to spend time outside.

It can be difficult to fully enjoy that time outside, though, if you’re attached at the hip to your digital device. Especially if you’re still thawing off from some late-winter storms or coming out from your blanket forts, it’s possible you’ve been spending more time than you’d like on your devices.

Whether you call it conserving energy, hibernating, or doom scrolling, our digital lives have a way of encroaching on our real-life lives. 

Every once in a while, then, it can be healthy to do a small digital detox to rebalance your day, center your priorities, and enjoy the world around you #unfiltered.

We’ve talked previously in this space about choosing a digital detox that fits into your schedule - maybe you want a one-day digital detox, a weekend digital detox, or even a weeklong one.

While those time-constrained detoxes can certainly be effective, they are not always practical in a world ever-more dependent on tech. So what we’ve put together for you today are a handful of digital detox challenges that don’t necessarily require complete digital abstinence - they just require a commitment to using your devices a bit more consciously.

So, let’s dive in!

Start One Of These Digital Detox Challenges Today

1. No Notifications - One of the reasons we turn to our devices so often is because they’re crying out for our attention. The notifications are non-stop: Bleep! Ping! Dee-woop! Like tending to a newborn, we swoop in to make sure we haven’t missed anything. And likely, we haven’t (other than a one-month-only sale!). For this challenge, turn off your device’s notifications (save maybe the special one for your child’s daycare) and use your phone more deliberately.
   
   
2. Take Social Media Off Your Phone - Given that there’s always something new to scroll on your favorite social media app, you may need to reduce the access to cut down on your digital time. You don’t have to disconnect completely or delete your accounts forever, but as Fast Company suggests, maybe removing the social media apps from your phone can help you feel a little bit more connected to the real world.
   
   
3. Under An Hour A Day - According to Psychology Today, just 5% of Americans spend under an hour a day on their phones. While this might seem like an impossible feat, especially given more tech-heavy lines of work, it wouldn’t be a challenge if it didn’t take a little effort! Accomplishing a challenge like this one means not relying on your phone to fill in the downtime, so try and cut back on the early morning scrolls.
   
   
4. 30 Days Of Challenges - If you like a marathon, you might like Forbes’ 30-Day Digital Detox Challenge. Designed to introduce a new action each day that builds throughout, you’ll be tested by refraining from using your device in line, in the bathroom, while exercising, and more. Then as you come in toward the finish line, your focus will switch from avoiding technology to embracing the real world and feeling present. A worthwhile effort!

A digital detox, whether the challenges above or the longer-lasting ones we’ve written about before, can be intense to start with, we know. 

If you’d like to start off with some more achievable milestones, our Unplugged IRLA Pack offers earnable achievements for hiking, baking bread, assembling puzzles, and more.

And what about you? Any interest in taking on one of these digital detoxes?