Scrolling Literally Kills our Brain - Here's Why

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Mindless scrolling. A very common term, isn't it? And at the same time, quite notorious.

Nowadays social media content continuously becomes shorter. From 10-minute YouTube guides, we then proceeded to Instagram feed. And now a 10-second TikTok format seems to be just okay.

_{Learn what doomscrolling is}

While mindless scrolling might look as a good break from work etc., it is far from the best in the long run.

Let's be honest: do we often spend only 10 minutes checking countless notifications and watching videos? But why is scrolling so addictive?

According to Unplugged, social media platforms are designed to keep you online and trap you into a scrolling black hole. They provide you bite-sized, easy to consume content through a highly developed algorithm to serve you similar content, causing us to spend hours on our phones even if we don’t want to.

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The result is: you find yourself sitting in a taylormade information bubble.

Furthermore, scrolling social media and websites activates the brain's reward centre by releasing dopamine, a “feel-good chemical” associated to pleasure and reward. Every like, comment, or video is a mini reward, keeping us hooked on the next potential hit.

But the key thing here is that the rewards are unexpected and variable. When we encounter something novel or unexpected, like a shocking news headline or a dramatic social media post, our brain releases dopamine.

_{Harvard Business Review}

Basically, we’re chasing that next dopamine hit like a hamster on a social media wheel. The last ten videos have been boring, but maybe the next one…

_{Just the phone's missing... Giphy}

Mindless scrolling mostly affects our attention centre. The thing is: our brain gets used to focus for a certain period. If we often concentrate on one action for much time, our attention span will be stronger too.

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This works the other way as well. Although I haven't found an exact explanation on the Web, I'll try to do this myself.

If we consume 10-15 second videos most of the time, our mind gets used to switch the subject of focus 3-4 times per minute.

As a result, we can't force ourselves to do the same task for a long time. Achieving long-term goals, such as pursuing education, becomes incredibly hard for our brain.

Then what will happen to us if we need to do homework for an hour, which is approx. 1.000 focus switches?!

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Sometimes social media addiction is caused by fear.

"Fearing that you’re missing out on content, trends or news can also encourage you to repeatedly pick up your phone. The fast paced nature of social media means things change very quickly, so we feel the need to constantly check in. " - Unplugged.

But honestly, are at least 10% of this data persist for several hours or days?

_{CCF Global}

So, here is a short summary of the brain-drain process due to mindless scrolling. But is there a way out? Sure there is.

By the way, we were talking about this previously.

I hope this post was beneficial for you to read.

Have a good and healthy day!

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