Eli Singer

The 2026 US midterm elections are Tuesday, Nov. 3, and some close races may not be called for days (NPR). Eli Singer, founder of Offline.now, says the hardest part for most people will be the night itself. "People have been in this news cycle for months. They've seen the ads and had the hard conversations, at home and at work. On both sides, people feel their future is at stake. A strict phone rule for one night won't hold up against that." Eli Singer, founder of Offline.now What the research says Election stress shows up in sleep. In a study of the 2020 presidential election, 437 people in the US reported on their sleep every day before and after the vote (Cunningham and colleagues, Sleep Health, 2022). Election Day brought less sleep and more stress, and disrupted sleep that night went along with changes in mood. It was a volunteer sample, so it may not match the country as a whole. The worry starts early. In a 2024 survey of 2,006 US adults, 46% said they had lost sleep worrying about the presidential election (American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2024). Make a plan you can keep Singer's advice is to decide the shape of the night ahead of time, ideally with someone else. Talk it through with someone in your house before the polls close. Pick the point when you accept you won't know until morning. Plan something for the evening besides the phone, like a walk. Decide how you'll wind down. You'll be keyed up, and sleep will be harder than usual. Keep the phone out of the bedroom if you can, and set an early alarm to check the results. Offline.now's guide to doomscrolling covers the daytime habits that make a night like this easier. "Election night asks for the most self-control at the hour you have the least. Make your plan at dinner, while you're still thinking clearly." Eli Singer "The results will be there in the morning. Waking up early to check them is a perfectly good plan." Eli Singer Where to start Lasting change runs on confidence, not willpower. Two questions find your starting place: Find Your Starting Place. If election stress feels persistent or overwhelming, a qualified professional can help you tailor support. About the expert Eli Singer is the founder of Offline.now, a directory of therapists and coaches who work on screen and phone use. He created the Offline.now Matrix and wrote Offline.now: A Practical Guide to Healthy Digital Balance. He is available to comment this week on election-night phone use and news stress: eli@offline.now, or the Contact button below.

The verdict against Meta and YouTube has reignited debate over addictive design and youth social media harm. But according to Harshi Sritharan, clinician and digital dependency expert with Offline.now, one key issue is still being overlooked: digital emotional regulation. Sritharan works with young people and families dealing with the real-life fallout of harmful platform design, including compulsive scrolling, sleep disruption, body-image distress, emotional dysregulation, and conflict at home. “The goal isn’t to remove technology from their lives entirely,” says Sritharan. “It’s to help young people and their families build healthier relationships with it.” She can speak to why regulating platform design matters, why digital resilience and online emotional regulation should be treated as core life skills, and why simply restricting access without healthier alternatives can push vulnerable youth into harder-to-monitor spaces. As news coverage focuses on liability and platform accountability, Sritharan offers a frontline clinical perspective on what these harms actually look like inside homes and what young people, parents, schools, and policymakers may still be missing. ABOUT THE EXPERT Harshi Sritharan is a clinician and digital dependency expert with Offline.now, a digital wellness platform connecting individuals and families with therapists, coaches, and social workers who specialize in healthier relationships with technology.

Everyone’s heard you’re “not supposed to be on your phone before bed” but what does that actually mean in 2026? Most major sleep organizations now recommend putting devices away at least 30–60 minutes before bedtime to protect melatonin and help the brain wind down. The National Sleep Foundation and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine both advise turning off screens about an hour before bed; other experts say a 30–60 minute window is the minimum. (Advisory) Research on blue light shows that evening screen exposure suppresses melatonin and delays sleep, especially when you’re scrolling something stimulating. (Sutter Health) Psychotherapist Harshi Sritharan, MSW, RSW, who specializes in ADHD and digital dependency, puts it bluntly: “To ensure quality sleep and peak performance—whether in sports, work, or school—avoid using your phone after 11 p.m.” For teens and adults with ADHD or anxiety, she says, late-night doomscrolling is especially brutal: screens keep dopamine and stress high at exactly the time the nervous system should be powering down. Harshi says: "The quality of sleep determines your level of executive functioning the next day" She also makes an important distinction: if you are on a device in the evening, active use (choosing a show, talking to friends, looking up something specific) is less harmful than passive use: “Don’t do passive tech use — that doom scrolling, content just being thrown at you,” Sritharan says. “Be more active about your tech use.” That kind of passive feed is more likely to serve up emotionally intense content kids didn’t ask for and aren’t ready to process. You Don’t Need a Perfect Curfew to See Results The good news: the science suggests you don’t have to quit completely at night to feel a difference. A JAMA Network Open study on young adults found that reducing social media use for just one week — not going cold turkey — led to about a 24.8% drop in depression, 16.1% drop in anxiety and 14.5% improvement in insomnia symptoms. Offline.now founder Eli Singer argues that the real challenge is confidence, not willpower. Their data show 8 in 10 people want a healthier relationship with tech, but more than half feel too overwhelmed to know where to start. The platform’s behavior data also show that late afternoons and evenings are when phones dominate use and when people are actually most motivated to make changes. We have less in the tank at night, don't trust willpower to transition off. Have a system/routine of pre-decided of low-effort (potentially fun) activities to help the transition off phones. “We tell people: don’t start with a perfect 8 p.m. curfew,” Singer says. “Start with one realistic phone-off window — even 30 minutes before bed — and prove to yourself you can protect that. That first win matters more than an ideal schedule you’ll never keep.” A Simple, Science-Aligned Answer For most people, Offline.now’s experts land on a practical, high-compliance answer to the question “What time should I turn off my phone?” Aim to put your phone away 30–60 minutes before your target bedtime Make everything after that screen-free by default (books, stretching, music, talking, journaling) If you must be on a device late, keep it brief, low-drama and intentional — no infinite feeds, no emotionally loaded content It’s a small change, but in the context of a day where we’re already on screens for roughly 10 of our 16 waking hours, that last hour matters. Featured Experts Harshi Sritharan, MSW, RSW – Psychotherapist specializing in ADHD, anxiety, insomnia and digital dependency. She explains how late-night and early-morning phone use hijack dopamine, disrupt sleep and make it harder for kids and adults to function the next day. Eli Singer – Founder of Offline.now and author of Offline.now: A Practical Guide to Healthy Digital Balance. He speaks to the platform’s behavioral data on when people are most ready to change, and how 20-minute micro-experiments (like one phone-off window at night) build real confidence over time. Expert interviews can be arranged through the Offline.now media team.