The notification flashes up on your phone and you feel a little bit sick: your weekly screentime report is here, and the results are nauseating reading.

It doesn’t matter how often we’re reminded that spending hours each day staring at screens isn’t good for us, or how much we might try to read more books, meditate, or do anything other than the aforementioned staring at screens – our time spent immersed in the internet all too often seems to run away from us. It feels unconscious; something that’s not really in our control.

Of course, we’re not suggesting that you go entirely phone-free and live in the woods, but it would be nice to feel a tad more on top of where our time goes. Especially when it feels like we have to constantly stay up to date when huge events happen, such as the US election.

But how do we do that? How do we start to wrestle back control of our screen use? We asked Kyle Taylor, the author of The Little Black Book Of Social Media, for his practical tips.

“It is getting harder to keep technology and the digital world out of more and more aspects of our lives,” Taylor tells Stylist. “Social media no longer feels like an option but instead a necessity. From staying in touch with friends to managing small businesses and discovering new music, social media can feel increasingly like an extension of our offline existence rather than a separate space altogether.

“It’s more important than ever to think practically about how we can maintain control of our digital lives and effectively manage our screen time.”

Feel like your constantly checking the news on your phone? Try these practical steps to get back on top of your screentime