By Divya Venkataraman Wellness 14.08.2026

"I Finally Found a Way to Stop Scrolling Away My Evenings – And I’m Not Going Back"

Why giving up my phone every night has completely changed my life.

When journalist Divya Venkataraman cut her nightly scroll from her routine, it wasn't easy – but it was life-changing. In this piece, she reflects on the decision that led to putting her phone away entirely and why she'll never return to life before it.

Eyeballing is a lost art. That’s what I’m thinking as I stand in my kitchen, faced with a small mountain of herbs (basil, mint, a rogue leftover sprig of parsley) and a rapidly diminishing triangle of Parmigiano Reggiano. The vision? A batch of fresh, summery pesto. The ingredient ratio? Unclear. Eyeballing is all I’ve got: it’s a phone-free evening.

It all started in early June, when the turning over of the season felt like a natural invitation to reflect. My boyfriend and I put together a list of little things we wanted to do this season, ways of changing our lives in small and tangible ways: play more silly games, find a place to skinny-dip, wake up to catch a sunrise.

The phone-free evening was a way to add a little more presence into our evenings: because of my work as a culture and fashion journalist, I spend much more time than I would like on my phone during the day, and the lines between work and socialising often end up blurring to the point of… well, total absence. I reach out to interviewees on Instagram, I sort out meetings on WhatsApp, I research stories on Reddit. It’s all a big nebulous mass of scrolling and notifications and brand-zapping in-feed short-form video.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, due to the nature of these platforms and the algorithms underpinning them, I also found that the more I used my phone during the work day, the harder I found it to give it a rest after the work was done. It wasn’t that I breathed a sigh of relief once I could switch off; it was the opposite. My hands naturally drifted to unlock my home screen; I found comfort in my phone’s metallic presence, as if it were a child’s worn-out blanket. I mean, it’s not for nothing that experts like Tristan Harris, co-founder and executive director of the Center for Humane Technology, call phones slot machines we keep in our pockets. Clearly, something needed to change.

The first evening I turned my phone off – off! Not just silent! – my muscles reflexively looked for my phone before I knew what I was doing. It was uncomfortable. I felt itchy. In the kind of parlance usually reserved for romantic heroes and pining heroines, I ached for it, in a bodily way.

I think the switch flicked when I realised I didn’t want these evenings to be defined by absence – the absence of a phone, the absence of connectivity. It had to be shaped by the addition of something else. I started to freestyle my cooking – something that may not be a huge ask for a confident cook, but it’s a minor miracle for me when I serve a dish and no component is charred beyond edibility, or totally underdone.

I started to find the joy in winging it; in whipping and pouring and hoping for the best. Ironically, I think my overall success rate might have been higher than when I was anxiously following recipes. I started to read more physical books, which I will say, ended up being easier when tempting notifications weren’t buzzing just yonder. While it’s summer where I live in London, I’ve started going on post-dinner walks, strolling the almost emptied-out park while the sky stretches out in a pale, almost colourless pink until 9:30 pm.

These aren’t radical additions to my lifestyle. I’ve always loved to read; an evening walk is a simple, universal pleasure. I think, if anything, it was more in the mindset shift: the idea of bringing forward a kind of presence instead of absence; a way of thinking about those evenings not as lacking something but as an invitation to allow something else in.

The mornings after these phone-free evenings, I feel a little more focused, a little less itchy to reach for each ping and ding of a notification. It’s allowed me the space to realise how cluttered my brain can get by the constant inputs technology provides, and a little more perspective on everything that exists in the tiny digital universe. I think it’s allowed me the freedom to sink into the real world more, to feel it more fully, to engage with it with more intensity.

And the pesto tasted great, by the way. Zestier than expected.

3 (other) things to do on a phone-free evening

1. Meditate

Two birds in one stone. If you usually rely on apps to meditate, challenge yourself by guiding yourself through a meditation practice. A body scan is a great place to start – a journey that starts with you focusing on your toes and making your way up to the crown of your head is quite intuitive.

2. Have a long bath or shower

Water has restorative properties, and a phone-free evening gives you the chance to do something which you might consider ‘indulgent’ on an ordinary evening. Honestly, with all the scroll time you’ve recovered, you deserve this bath.

3. Dig out a board game

Injecting a bit of play into a normal evening is a delightful way to lean into the philosophy of adding, rather than subtracting. Once you’re deep in the throes of a tightly competitive game of Scrabble or Ticket to Ride, you’ll have forgotten your phone completely.