Why I Turned Off Notifications Again

This morning I woke up, went to the bathroom, sat on the toilet, and almost fell right back into a habit I had already killed. I opened Instagram. Not because I wanted to — a notification flashed and my thumb moved before my brain registered what was happening. That’s exactly why I had notifications OFF for years. I scrolled for maybe two minutes, Thanksgiving posts, family pictures, the usual curated moments people share. Nothing wrong with them, but something in me woke up mid-scroll. A clear “what the fuck… this again?” The realization wasn’t dramatic. It was just obvious: this is not how I want the first moments of my day to go.

And then I heard my daughter outside. She had just woken up and was already bouncing around, ready to play, ready for attention, ready for the morning chaos we always start together. That contrast landed fast — the flatness of the feed versus the warmth waiting for me outside the door. I wanted to go to her. That simple desire snapped me out of the scroll faster than any discipline trick ever could. No guilt, no shame, just relief in the clarity: ella importa más que esta pantalla.

Underneath that relief, there was this discomfort I couldn’t ignore — not “I’m an idiot,” nothing like that. It was more like recognizing the tension we all live with now. This modern thing where… adults wake up and the first thing we touch is a phone… a feed… many flavors of a feed, all designed to keep us half-conscious. Not because we’re weak — because the system is engineered for that. And I felt that contrast in my body: this doesn’t match the level of presence I want for my life. It wasn’t a self-attack; it was simply noticing a small misalignment and going, “Nah, not this direction.”

And because I’m 39, the time cost isn’t abstract. At this stage, you feel the edges of life more clearly — its fragility, its speed, the days slipping by faster than you can catch them. Fifteen minutes isn’t catastrophic, but it’s not neutral either. It’s the difference between a grounded morning and one that drifts. A reminder that every day is one less. A tiny memento mori delivered through a glowing screen. And I don’t want the early minutes of my life — the ones that actually shape the day — leaking into a void.

When I stepped out of the bathroom and saw Mia practically vibrating with “let’s play,” everything recalibrated instantly. That’s the gravity I want my mornings to have — living creatures pulling me into the day, not a feed pulling me out of it. The laughter, the jokes, the cuddles, the chaos — that’s my real anchor. Not meditation, not a perfect routine, not some idealized productivity ritual. Just the messy humanity of waking up with kids who want to engage with the world, and with me. Eso es vida.

So when I say doom-scrolling is a waste of time, I’m not preaching. I’m describing what it is. A loop that gives you nothing back. Maybe once in a while you get a hit of “clarity,” but most of the time it’s just one thing: ads. You scroll, you see something shiny, maybe you buy something you didn’t need — and boom, that’s the whole business model. It’s fitting that today is Black Friday; half the feed is engineered to make you spend your morning, your money, or your attention. Or all three. We call it content, but a lot of it is just the storefront of a digital mall you didn’t mean to walk into.

So for me it comes down to one simple question: what part of my real life was already waiting for me while I was scrolling in the bathroom? And why is the feed even allowed to compete with that? Because once I remember what actually matters — the warmth, the jokes, the physical presence, the human contact — the scroll feels cheap. Like eating cardboard when there’s real food on the table. Not evil. Just empty.

And about the notifications… I did the simplest thing I already knew worked: I turned notifications off again. All of them. Instagram, Facebook, the ‘someone liked your thing’ dopamine drips — gone. If something matters, it can wait until I go in on purpose. If it matters, my door will be knocked, my phone will ring with intention. But most of these ‘social’ notifications?! They are off again. I’d turned them off years ago, then slowly let them creep back in out of convenience and ‘staying connected.’ But this morning made it obvious: I don’t need my phone to decide when I connect. I’ll decide.

And the anchor doesn’t have to be poetic or profound. It just has to be real. Something in your life with enough weight to pull you out of the feed and into the present. For me it’s my kids in the morning. For someone else it might be coffee, or sunlight, or un rato de silencio. Whatever it is, once you recognize it, doom-scrolling stops feeling like a habit and starts looking like a downgrade — a tiny, daily leak in the limited container of your life.