How’s your “Shame-Scrolling” coming along?
The temptation to not be totally honest weighs heavily on me. Should someone ask me how much time I waste each day to the tyranny of the scroll, I’d feel ashamed to admit what I’ve succumbed to over time. Wouldn’t you? C’mon, even if it’s only 10 minutes, you’ve just used up 10 precious minutes of your life watching videos of complete strangers doing “who knows what” in a feeble effort to entertain yourself. Not a single one of us could have ever predicted such a significant part of our life would be spent on what’s now commonly referred to as “shame-scrolling.”
When I search for a definition of shame-scrolling, what pops up is: Shame-Scrolling is the act of compulsively scrolling through social media or online content while simultaneously feeling guilty, or ashamed about doing it – yet continuing anyway. Further, shame-scrolling captures that specific flavor of digital consumption where you’re 1) Aware you should be doing something more productive or meaningful, 2) Recognizing the content isn’t particularly valuable or enriching, 3) Feeling worse about yourself as you continue whether from comparison, time waste, or the content yourself, or 4) Unable or unwilling to stop despite these negative feelings.
Shame-scrolling is closely related to doomscrolling (compulsively consuming negative news), but shame-scrolling has an added layer of self-judgement about the behavior itself. Ouch! To make matters worse, whatever feed we utilize for our scrolling is keeping track and taking notes. Based on how they manipulate what they feed us; they clearly have mastered exploiting addictive behavior to keep us doing more of what we’re doing. Why? For money. Lots and lots of money that they receive via targeted ads that are forced on us as we shame-scroll. Their ad click-through rates are amazing when they personalize what we’re exposed to.
Some people might suggest that they utilize their scrolling habits to relieve stress, but just like drugs, alcohol, and gambling addictions, when the high is over, your stress and problems remain, sometimes getting worse because you’ve delayed moving towards solutions. Even if you attempt to claim that scrolling is just a simple form of entertainment, like watching television, you’re still internally dealing with emotional weight of shame…you know, that internal conflict between what you’re doing and what you feel you should be doing. So, ask yourself this: Is spending time scrolling what each of us was put on this earth for? Is scrolling meant to be our higher purpose?
Do you ever visit the past and wonder what people did to relieve stress before social media? Before the internet? Before television? Before radio? What were some of the skills passed down from parent to child that are now near extinct? Was boredom even an issue or were days filled with so much activity that there wasn’t room for boredom to creep into them? Have the advances that have brought so much comfort into our lives and satiated nearly all our needs and wants been mismanaged in our adaptation of their use? It’s certainly worth spending some time considering what we could be doing during the time we spend each day shame-scrolling.
Is there a process that could allow us to eliminate the habit and routine that mindless scrolling has inhabited our daily life with? I believe there is. No, it’s not just quitting cold-turkey or adopting the just-do-it mentality (although those can work for some people). The process involves creating an interruption each time you find yourself beginning to scroll, immediately replacing that scrolling with something that offers a much higher return-on-investment of your time, and then anchoring that activity in your mind based on how much joy (the reward) the different activity brings to your life.
Some options that work well for me for interruption evolved from a simple analysis of where I found myself when I was mindlessly scrolling. Was I at my desk, in a reclining chair, or in bed attempting to go to sleep? I spend time on my computer at my desk each day and placed a jar next to my computer along with a stack of quarters. Any time I click on a video that leads to watching the next video in line, I place a quarter in the jar. I have an accountability partner that I do this with and at the end of each month we exchange jars and start over. Neither of us wants to give the other more than we’re receiving and there’s extreme pleasure in handing the person an empty jar.
Interrupting has helped stop the scrolling, but the temptation to scroll isn’t removed unless it’s immediately replaced with something close at hand. For me it’s normally picking up a book I’m reading, listening attentively to music I love with my eyes closed (I’m easily distracted with them open), or taking immediate action with something on my never-ending to-do list. Each of those gets anchored as a replacement in my mind by the immense value they bring to my life when compared to scrolling. But hey, that’s just me. The options for you are vast and varied. Try walking around Hobby Lobby for an hour. Search activities offered by the community you live in. Research different clubs or groups of interest. Pursue the things you’ve always dreamed of doing but didn’t have time for (now you do). You get the idea.
YOU possess this incredible thing called a brain that is smarter than any super-computer and cleverer than any artificial intelligence will ever be. YOU are worth taking the time to come up with the interruptions, replacements, and anchoring supports that work best for who you are and who you want to be. Eliminating shame-scrolling from your life is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. Your mental health will skyrocket in a positive direction, and you’ll find yourself experiencing more face-to-face interactions in your daily life. I’ve provided you a workable system that will amplify the joy in your life, but it’s up to you to take action and put it to use. You will, won’t you? Hey…I Believe In YOU! GiddyUp!