Digital Wellness
NIT Goa Induction 2026
Swaroop Joshi
August 23 • श्रावण शुद्ध एकादशी
Warm up questions on menti
- In one word, why do you want to do engineering?
- Name one of your hobbies
- How many hours do you spend on this hobby?
- Rate the following statements (Strongly Agree–Strongly Disagree):
- I am concerned about my screen usage
- I am familiar with techniques to manage my screen time
- I want to learn how to manage my screen time better
Why this topic?
Our Approach
Lens
IKS
Neuroscience
Challenges
Global Market ForcesSolutions
Tools you can useHow many times do I pick up my phone everyday?
Let’s ask your phone
Android
- Settings > Digital Wellbeing and Parental Controls.
- First time use: need to set up your profile.
- Digital Wellbeing > Show Your Data > see Unlocks.
iPhone
- Settings > Screen Time > Turn On Screen Time.
- Settings > Screen Time > See All … Activity.
- Scroll down to Pickups.
Your phone’s stats
Average phone pickups / day1
150
Attention Span2
47 sec
Screen time statistics3
$7 h \times 365 d \times 4 y$
10,220 hours
An Asymmetric Battle
Top engineers, designers, psychologists + 💰 + ✨
v/s
18 year old student with a phone 👨🏽🎓 👩🏽🎓
Predictable reward ⇒ Dopamine ⬇️
Probabilistically Uncertain reward ⇒ Dopamine ⬆️
Addictive mechanics of casino games
🂮♠️♥️♣️♦️🂡
- Intermittent Variable Rewards
- The “Near-Miss” Effect
- The Illusion of Agency & Rapid Feedback
- No termination cues
A lottery game
You have a scratch card with 3 boxes. If you scratch all 3 boxes and they have the same symbol, you win ₹10,000. Otherwise, you win nothing.
Card A: 7️⃣ 4️⃣ 2️⃣
Card B: 7️⃣ 7️⃣ 6️⃣
Raise your hand ✋🏽 if you felt Card B was so close!Biggest powers
Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Amazon
Valuations bigger than many countries’ budgets 💰
Till recently: If you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product
Now (AI era): You are not just the product; you are the raw training dataset and the behavioral lab rat.
With such big powers working against me, what should I do?
The IKS Lens
inner layer > outer layer
The ratha metaphor
- रथी = core self
- सारथी = intellect
- लगाम = mind
- रथ = body
- घोडे = senses
- मार्ग = external world
कठोपनिषद् 1.3.3-4
The warning
यस्त्वविज्ञानवान्भवत्ययुक्तेन मनसा सदा । तस्येन्द्रियाण्यवश्यानि दुष्टाश्वा इव सारथेः ॥ (कठोपनिषद् 1.3.5)4
You planned to study for an exam, but two hours later, you are still staring at cute cats’ reels!
The horses hijacked the chariot.
How to hold the reins?
विवेकः = discernment
प्रेयस् = short-term pleasure
Train the mind to choose the long-term benefit over short-term pleasure.
Use the intellect to make the discipline and follow it.
Approaches: Deep Work
$\text{High-Quality Output} = (\text{Time Spent}) \times (\text{Intensity of Focus})$
❗️ IQ is not part of the equation
🤔 Which of the two factors do you want to improve?
Techniques
Time blocks – Plan your whole day, including social media time.
10-minute boredom rep – do nothing!
Approaches: Atomic Habits
✅ Make the good habit obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying.
❌ Make the bad habit invisible, unattractive, hard, and unsatisfying.
🪜 Habit stacking
Techniques
“I will check my phone only after I finish my breakfast.”
“I will not take my phone to the mess hall.”
Put your phone in the cupboard when you are studying.
Approaches: Indistractable
🪤 The investment trap
‼️ Distraction is an Escape from Pain
Techniques
10-minute resistance challenge – if you feel the urge to pick up the phone when you are studying, wait for 10 min.
Move the distracting apps to a folder in the last page of your home screen.
Enable greyscale mode on your phone (Through Accessibility settings).
Your attention is the most valuable resource you have.
Protect it well.
Use it wisely.
Thank you 🙏🏽
Prof. Swaroop Joshi
Associate Professor • CS & IS Department
BITS Pilani • KK Birla Goa Campus
🌐 swaroopjoshi.in