We carry in our pockets little glowing machines that can instantly show us war, collapse, outrage, scandal, disaster, betrayal, economic panic, social conflict, and existential dread… twenty-four hours a day.
Why do we call this “staying informed”?
I don’t think most people are truly informed anymore. About anything. I think most people are just chemically trapped.
And let me tell you something… dopamine is not always our friend.
People talk about dopamine like it’s happiness. It’s not. Dopamine is anticipation. Seeking. Craving. It’s the neurological itch that says: maybe the next scroll will contain something important. And social media platforms learned how to weaponize that instinct better than casinos ever did.
Doom-scrolling feels productive because your brain interprets information gathering as survival behavior. Thousands of years ago, paying attention to danger kept you alive. The rustling in the bushes mattered. The tribe over the hill mattered. Scarcity mattered. Threat mattered.
Now the bushes never stop rustling.
Our nervous systems were not designed to absorb the suffering, conflict, and chaos of eight billion people simultaneously. But the algorithm keeps feeding it to us because outrage and anxiety generate engagement. Engagement generates profit.
So people scroll.
It doesn’t even feel good. Often it feels terrible.
But because intermittent stimulation is addictive. Every once in a while there’s a meaningful post. A shocking revelation. A moment of validation. A tiny hit of novelty. The brain learns to keep pulling the lever.
And after a while, people become psychologically fragmented. Spiritually exhausted. Unable to sit quietly. Unable to focus deeply. Unable to feel present in their own lives because their nervous system has been trained to live everywhere else.
Maybe reclaiming our humanity begins with reclaiming our attention.
Because attention is life. And whatever owns your attention eventually owns you.
Join us in making the world a better place. You’ll be glad that you did. Cheers, friends.
