Throughout the overwhelming majority of human history, our knowledge acquisition faced meaningful spatial and temporal constraints. In prehistory, human knowledge was limited to communal memory and oral traditions. In early civilization, the accumulation of information expanded with the innovation of the written word stored on clay tablets. Accessing their extant knowledge, however, remained an arduous task, largely restricted to local gossip. Were we to show an ancient Mesopotamian, knee-deep in a search for some elusive cuneiform tablet, our present information-acquisition capabilities, they’d be in disbelief.
Indeed, we now carry the sum total of accumulated knowledge in our pockets. The concept of poring over scrolls, clay tablets, and hand-written manuscripts seems as inconceivable to us as our constant engagement with pocket-sized glowing portals of information seems to the settlers of the Indus River Valley. And with unprecedented innovation bringing such wealth of information to our fingertips, we naturally turned to this technology’s one true utility: “doomscrolling.”
Yes, it may seem counterintuitive that the potential of an invention with the capacity to forever enhance learning is funneled into an endless, intoxicating deluge of digital media that is the doomscroll. The point of this essay, however, is not to reproach those of us who have fallen victim to the modern scroll. The aforementioned Mesopotamian, despite having their once-arduous pursuit of information now expedited, would probably do the same. This is by virtue of the scroll’s very design: a fantastic creation, so human-scaled that it learns and manipulates our behavior, exploiting the passions and dopamine-seeking desires that are fundamental to our human nature in order to maximize each user’s time spent on the app. What this piece does attempt, however, is to pathologize the scroll and convey the urgent need to excise it.
Despite its provision of unparalleled hyperconnectivity, social media inherently impedes authentic social engagement and civic participation. Its algorithm-driven business model necessarily creates an atomized experience for each individual user, an abstract social (sur)reality wherein doomscrolling exists as a form of engagement. Utterly detached and individualized, this simulated sociality inhibits the formation of more durable social bonds and the cultivation of engaging public spaces—the bases for maintaining a civil society.
Arguably even more problematic is the toll the scroll takes on the individual. The action of doomscrolling is an almost complete relinquishment of agency. Unlike its predecessors in digital media engagement, the scroll affords the user little autonomy over the experience—instead bombarding them with a truly endless flood of bite-sized digital stimuli. Predictive and prescriptive, it extrapolates from our viewing habits and preferences, guiding us down one rabbit hole after another until our feed is constituted entirely by the algorithm’s allotment. This affords the user the illusion of agency, such that some mistake the contents of the scroll to be a garden of one’s own cultivation.
Given the doomscroll’s unrelenting entertainment, however, many may willingly sacrifice their autonomy in digital engagement. Beyond the forfeiting of agency, though, doomscrolling is an act of almost complete passive avoidance. For this reason, many equate doomscrolling with acts of self-care, as one’s brain is shut off and tuned almost exclusively to its feel-good side. Others characterize it as addiction, describing the discontented compulsion binding them to the scroll and the lethargy and regret that follow. I do not profess to have the neurobiological knowledge to warn of doomscrolling’s dangers on a physiological level. However, whether addiction or self-care, the constant pacification afforded by doomscrolling must be resisted.
Perhaps instinctively, we seem to avoid boredom at all costs. With this boredom-evading innovation, doing so comes with unprecedented ease. Every waking moment, the slightest semblance of boredom can be effortlessly excised and supplanted with the scroll. Downtime was once devoid of stimuli, serving as opportunities to let the mind wander free from restraint—essential fodder for thought and creation. Now, no time is more bombarded with stimuli than when we are idle. Most concerning, however, is the reworking of our habits that ensues; every waking moment becomes an avenue for constant pacification. In excess, as the doomscroll often exists, this has the capacity to suspend our critical thinking and drastically alter our conscious experience, solely by virtue of the space it takes up. Without sufficient time spent in pure boredom, we may lose our capacity to ideate and to create—a final, indelible surrender of agency.
For all our technological advantages over the ancient Mesopotamian, we may presently find ourselves disadvantaged in the pursuit of learning. The doomscroll exists alongside vast stores of information and is resoundingly winning the competition over our attention. It is evident that each of us must reject the pull of the doomscroll, embrace boredom, and replace passivity with the agency and inquisition that aren’t relics of Mesopotamia, but defining features of our humanity.
Photo by Morgan Zhang