It just became obvious to me the big issue with social media is the scrolling. The fact that the only thing between you and immersive reality refresh is the slight flick of a finger.
A slight muscle switch that probably cost zero neural activation and probably a nanocalory, shifts your sorrounding stage and set of jesters to entertain you. Basically teletransports you in both space and time.
Think about how fucking crazy that is.
I don’t know about you, but every time I look at a picture. Yes, a picture not a video. I feel a certain way. If there’s a subject in it, I’ll identify if they’re a threat and then feel what they are feeling. Or identify if they want me to feel a certain why.
I remember when 9gag was a thing. I’d go to bed and pull up my ipad under the sheets. And I’d spend hours scrolling down the gag’s, 9 at a time, until I’d reach the arrow buttons and refresh for my next 9 gags. I’d eventually get tired of the action of clicking and waiting for the page to load, at which point I’d just go to bed. I don’t really remember but I’d probably send 30-60 mins scrolling.
I vividly remember when they implement scrolling. I viscerally remember logging in, warmly in bed, waiting to feel a sense of connection to my fellow late night internet dwellers and gag at some picture. Scroll down to 9, and without counting, feel that it was time to click, wait, and reload.
But to my surprise. No button.
I was like “what the fuck?”. I don’t click anymore, more gags are just there ready for me to consume?
I felt weird, maybe even a little worried and confused with this new reality. But I bravely kept scrolling.
Only find myself ridding this newer dopamine high that I can distinctively feel. As if I was now sliding down a infinite park slide, no need to reach walk around, walk up the stairs, and fall again. Now I could just keep flying down the slide and bob’s your uncle.
But next thing I know it’s 3 am. I feel a little dirty. Like I had so much fun on my newly infinite slide that I feel ashamed. Why do I feel ashamed? Well I just mindlessly spend 2 extra ours viewing hundreds of thousands of extra gags. Lost hours of sleep and no longer feel in control of my desires. Now I kind of hate 9gag a little but for how good it makes me feel. I’m a little afraid of it.
Should I stop? Never log in again? No, it’s 3 am, we’ll figure out it tomorrow.
I wake up the next day, extra tired. Frustrated I’m now going to be tired all day because there was no button at the bottom of my screen. But this only happened once, surely tomorrow I’ll remember to stop my infinite slide. Only slide down a bit and then pull the stopping button.
The day’s over. We’re back in bed. Just a little 9gag but remember to stop. But a few gags in, I forget how ashamed, angry, betrayed, and ashamed I was. I’m just sliding down my favorite slide again.
Whoops. 3 am again. Houston, we have a problem.
I’m somewhat ashamed to admit it probably took a solid 18 months for me to stop be log out of 9gag. Hundreds of thousands of hours spent dissasociated. Years of my life I never got back again.
But then 9gag turned into facebook walls. The pictures were now of my friends. But my friends only had so many pictures. But I still wanted to feel connection, enjoyment, newness. So follow some celebrities who post every day, and we’re back on the doom scroll.
Again the cycle of wasted time, cooking your brain, removing your login, until a flashy new tool comes out.
Youtube. My sweet little youtube. Now I can watch videos, and get autosuggestions. I buy an iPad to be able to comfortably watch in bed. Boom, 9 years of watching youtube every single night. Sure I learn a lot, I feel like I’m friends with my creators. But I don’t read a single book, write a journal entry, practice the guitar, or create anything of any kind. Just consume, consume, consume.
It takes me 9 years to stop using Youtube. But at this point Instagram has overtaken my usage time.
And fuck you Tiktok. Using it literally makes me feel retarded. Never downloaded that after 10 years of the simple scroll functionality stealing my present moment and dopamine engine.
You might be thinking right now, fuck you dude with your first world problems. Well, yes, but also all my third world friends are even more enthralled by their tinny little screens. They’re not reading Dostoyevsky on the sweaty ass bus back home.
And all it took was a little 2 second wait time. Some space to think “Do I want to keep doing these”. Some self-reflection to think “Should I still be here”.
And it feels nitpicky. Like the problem with the 2 second wait time seems arbitrary and contrived. But no, that was the straw that broke the camels back.
But it makes sense. If your KPI is DAU’s and engagemenet time. All you have to do is:
- decrease the activation energy friction of consuming content,
- make me feel more with the content, make it inflammatory so i’m angry, sexual so I’m horny, and maybe alternative so I’m just confused but my eyes are glued to the screen.
The problem is, companies win when my eyes are on the screen. Why? The owner of the pixels on my screen can sell my attention. They can sell my mindshare. They can guarantee that my eyes see your logo, your product, hear your catch phrase.
Something that was literally impossible before. Now Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Tiktok get to decide what I see. I’ve lost power over my mind.
And at first it feels harmless. Instragram keeps me updated on what my friends are up to and lets me see which new single girls are around. But it becomes an open thread in my mind, stealing my attention and hours of my day.
I hate social media now. And I think everyone should too. Maybe I’m weak or sensitive. But now? All my friends have black and white filter on their phones, charge their phones in other rooms, and I went as far as not owning a TV.
And now with Sora, NanoBanana, and other VLLMs, these massive companies won’t need creators to sell your attention. They’ll be able to create exactly what you want to see, when you want to see it, until you the boundary is no longer. They own your attention.
And I feel this cheap dopamine percolating into everything else I do. Everything is now a little duller, a little more boring. Like the crack stole my enjoyment of sex with girlfriend, a beautiful sunset, or the sweet minty aftertaste of gum.
Why am I writing this? Well because I just realized that scrolling was to blame. Removing a little lag was all it took.
So now I add a lag back. And in that lag I reconnect with my mind. Is this who I want to be? Is this what I want to think?
Take back control and add a little lag.