What it actually costs
The main cost isn't some magic property of the screen. It's time. Every extra half hour of scrolling is half an hour off your sleep, and it's hard to get that back. Bright, stimulating content right before bed can also make it harder to wind down, though how much varies from person to person.
Changes that tend to work
Move the charger
Put your phone on the other side of the room, or at least out of arm's reach. If you can't grab it lazily, you're much less likely to start. Use a cheap alarm clock for waking up.
Pick a cutoff, and make it earlier than feels necessary
Aim for 30 to 60 minutes of no short videos before sleep. Even 20 minutes is better than nothing. Choose a time and set a phone alarm labelled "wind down".
Give yourself something else to do in bed
A paperback, a podcast with a sleep timer, or just a few pages of a notebook. A gap with nothing in it gets filled by the phone.
Use bedtime mode
On most Android phones, Digital Wellbeing has a Bedtime mode that turns the screen greyscale and silences notifications on a schedule. Grey feeds are noticeably less fun.
Let a limit end the session for you
If you do scroll at night, set a small daily cap so the feed closes on its own. With Brainrot: Reel Limit, a lot of people set the number lower than they think they need. By the time you reach it, you've usually had enough anyway. The difference is that you don't have to be the one who stops.
