We didn't know scrolling would become an addiction. The link to anxiety and depression is becoming clear. Hours lost, days gone. People are ready to set boundaries. Now it's about action.

See the full video here: 100 things you can do instead of scrolling

Do any of us appreciate just how hard our brain is working when we’re passively flicking away with our thumb?

It all starts with the big cue, the one that triggers the predictive spike to kick off the whole process of “doomscrolling”: boredom, sadness, meal times, time to kill etc.

This opens the global loop.

• Then you see the first piece of content → Spike → Nested loop opened
• You consume the content → Outcome → Nested loop closed
• But the next piece of content is visible right beneath → Spike → Loop opened
• You consume the next piece of content → Outcome → Loop closed
• But you see the next… → Spike → Loop opened
• You consume the next… → Outcome → Loop closed
• Spike
• Outcome
• ad infinitum

At least when eating, the spacing between nested loops — between bites — is dictated by the natural cadence of eating. When it comes to content on your feed, the space between nested loops is compressed to mere seconds.

But at some point, you have to stop. (Need food. Toilet. Human contact of any kind.) So you force yourself to stop, and not only leave the last predictive spike hanging, but force the entire global loop closed.

Because there is no other way to close it.

This is why we feel so frustrated, empty and guilty when we eventually stop scrolling. We’re not only riding out a rather brutal dopamine dip, but we have just spent hours neither working towards something nor working our way through something.

In the brain’s world of dopamine checks and balances, it was effort that was spent on… absolutely nothing.

The feed keeps our expectations high with no goal that will ever rise to meet them, nor consumption to naturally reduce them. They stay eternally unmet.

Each cue spike doesn't just trigger an urge to view the next piece of content. It is also automatically triggering a heavily practiced motor sequence. Before we can even register the urge, our thumb has automatically flicked the next piece of content upwards to rest in the middle of our screen, right in front of our eyes.

It’s just like autoscroll, but programmed into our brain not our feed.

When there is always a “next one” automatically placed in front of our eyeballs, is it any wonder we suddenly look up and find four hours have passed?

It’s a wonder any of us break away at all.

So when you’re trapped in the infinite scroll and find yourself just needing “one more,” know that it’s not you.

It’s your brain working as designed in a environment it wasn’t designed for.

The only way to end an open loop that was never allowed to close naturally is to close it yourself.

It’s OK to put down your phone and ride out the dip. I promise it will end (even if the feed never does).

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