Today’s Big Social eerily resembles yesterday’s Big Tobacco. Scrolling is the new smoking.
Scrolling Is The New Smoking, an article from forbes.com
At some point, a nagging voice inside you must have whispered something in your gut, like, “Stop. This is not how you should be spending your time.“
But because the bright screens are like the vivid slot machines in casinos that could put you up in a trance, you dismiss that voice with a shrug, “This is how I want to spend a few minutes of my time.” But, of course, we know that the “few minutes of my time” is a lie.
Watching Miss Americana made me realize that if you want to become somebody, say, five years from now, then the habits you create and the activities you involve yourself in today help you become the person you want to be. Yes, external factors need to be added to the mix, but a majority of your future is borne out of what you prioritize in life.
And unconsciously scrolling into the deep abyss of the never-ending social media feeds undermines all the possibilities of you maximizing your potential. Because the same number of hours you spend online could be spent upskilling and rubbing off shoulders with people who could feed you new and creative ideas, which in turn could help you improve in many ways.
I don’t want to be anybody; I might as well scroll my life away.
But that would be robbing yourself of a future.
Scrolling mindlessly doesn’t just become a hard habit to break overnight. It started with subtle cues and an environment that favors you to fumble with your phone than do something else.
Instead of winding down before you sleep, you tell yourself, “I’d like to check out what’s up with my friends,” because often, the real world bleeds into the virtual and vice versa. Read some comments, react to some photos, watch some reels, and after an hour or two, it’s way past your bedtime.
Oh, it’s already 1 am. I better sleep now so I can be early for work later.
And now you ended up lacking sleep. “But at least I had fun virtually catching up with my friends,” you say. So you repeat it again later in the evening. Then again, and again. Until you always bring your phone beside you and scroll through social media right before you sleep.
Getting a smartphone this year undoubtedly allowed me to regain access to the virtual realities I’ve built my life upon. It helped me a lot to negotiate with suppliers for our wedding preparations too. However, it also surfaced the bad habits I tried to escape from. If this feeling of being trapped with a pattern you want to break yourself from resonates with you, you’re not alone.
I might have learned a lot from Tiny Habits (a book you might be interested to read), but it takes a decision and intention to build the habits you would be proud of.
Tip: If you want to stop yourself from scrolling your phone before you sleep, put it away from you before bedtime. Put it in a place that would require you to stand up to get it. What about the snooze button? Well then, you better wake up the way you intended to.
P.S.: I logged myself out from the Facebook app installed on my phone, which forces me to do something else (like reading a book) to fill in the time. Simply adding the friction of logging back into the app now allows me to be more intentional when using it. I now use my free time reading books, listening to podcast, and writing blogs.
jessa 