Part of the problem is that our phones are always with us and easy to reach. Another issue is that there are many short intervals in the day, whether it’s waiting on a subway platform or getting ready to go to sleep, where we’ve got nothing better to do but to open up our apps and see what might be new. But it doesn’t have to be this way. There are apps that can bring us all kinds of benefits and positive vibes as an alternative to doomscrolling. And what’s more, you can use them in short snippets throughout the day, whenever you have a spare couple of minutes. Invest a few minutes here and there throughout the day and they can quickly build up into hours of practicing your reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills in another language. At all times you can keep track of your progress and mix up the kinds of tests and challenges you’re doing. The gold standard here is Duolingo (iOS, Android), because of its intuitive interface and its quick, simple lessons. You can use it for free or pay $7 a month to remove the ads and get more types of exercises. Babbel (iOS, Android) and Rosetta Stone (iOS, Android) are top quality alternatives. When it comes to replacing doomscrolling, you might be surprised at how much reading you can get through with just a handful of minutes a day. At a glance, you can see how far through each e-book you are and how much reading you’ve got left. Importantly for this particular list, most podcast players include a timer function that lets you set how long you want to listen to a particular episode for. So, if you know you’ve got a five-minute break or 10 minutes before bed, you can set the timer accordingly and forget about having to stare at the screen. If you’re on an iPhone, the obvious podcast player choice is Apple Podcasts. For Android users, it’s probably Google Podcasts (which is also available on iOS, by the way). There’s a whole host of other podcast players available, too—we especially like the free Pocket Casts (iOS, Android). You can save articles to Instapaper (iOS, Android) very easily from any web browser. The app cuts out ads, navigation bars, and other distractions, leaving you with a simplified reading interface. Even better, it shows you at a glance how long each article is, so you can pick and choose accordingly. For $3 a month you can get extra features such as full text search and no limits on the notes you add to articles. Feedly (iOS, Android) is also worth considering. This RSS reader can collate new articles from your favorite sites, giving you a straightforward interface to read them on, and adding features such as tags and highlights. You can follow up to 100 feeds for free, and after that, paid plans start at $6 a month. You could just put on a relaxing playlist, for example, and let your thoughts drift—a quick search on YouTube (iOS, Android) or Spotify (iOS, Android) will return plenty of options for you to pick from. YouTube can offer you lots of free guided meditations, too: Include a time limit in your search that matches how long you’ve got. Then there are dedicated meditation apps you can turn to. One of the most well-known is Headspace (iOS, Android), which has hundreds of guided meditations to pick from—it costs $13 a month, but you can try it free for a week. Calm (iOS, Android) is also worth a look, with its own vast library and a choice of meditation lengths: A limited amount of content is available for free, with a premium subscription costing $15 a month.
