I had suspected my use of social media and my depleting attention span. But I did not realise that it had gotten this bad until I read through Genesis 1 and could not recount the text immediately after reading.
We scroll through social media without really knowing what we are looking for. There is a sly promise, a trick our mind plays, a fool’s errand: just keep scrolling; you will know what you are searching for when you see it.
And truly, you will see it. It will make you shocked and alarmed and upset and provoked and even ecstatic. Then our minds tell us “well done,” and we feel fulfilled. Sometimes, we leave the app and jump onto the next one waiting for us. When the dopamine washes off, we go back to the other app for another high, looking to be enraged again, happy again, provoked again. It is a delusion that, since we have this cocktail of hormones and reactions in our system, we have been busy after all.
So we scroll through posts in a hurry, flipping through pictures, skimming through texts, and training our brain muscle to do the same even outside the phone. This is why I couldn’t properly recount Genesis 1. I was skimming through it, not mindfully reading. My brain began to treat texts as inconsequential and not worth storing in memory. This is the main reason my memory has gotten poorer.
The Next-Task Syndrome
Mindful reading these days has become an intellectual activity, whereas every reading should be mindful.
The way we use social media has made people hollow in every aspect. We don’t just have poor thinkers, poor readers, and poor workers — we have people who do not have any depth emotionally or spiritually. Our minds are in smithereens, floating in a bubble. It is like a room with its windows open, the wind worrying a pile of papers from the desk to every part of the room.
It is an illusion that something is waiting for you to be done or paid attention to. Restless, you leave your task at hand for something else. In the end, you dig many shallow holes with no diamond.
It is the brain muscle, trained over time from doom scrolling on social media, having something akin to withdrawal symptoms, causing you to be angsty so that you scratch a restless itch.
At the end, when we learn — or claim to have learnt something, and there is a demand for that knowledge, our brains echo empty because we have learnt hurriedly.
Sunk-cost Fallacy
We now have the disease of betting people — the one where we think one win makes up for the losses we have made over time.
Sometimes, there is a glitch while scrolling, and you actually remember that you are a human being with a purpose on earth, and you get irritated at yourself, scrolling and scrolling aimlessly along the internet. Sometimes, your brain tells you to continue, that you will soon be rewarded with a shocker: celebrity gossip, news about a bomb blast somewhere, or news about a new technology.
Instead of breaking the loop of sifting through that internet slop, you feel you cannot leave without a high. Your brain lies. Remember, you have a will; that you control your life, not a small gadget.
Encoding Data
The process of learning, or encoding data, has become as valuable as the information itself. Repetition strengthens learning. Read and re-read. Don’t move to the next line if the encoding is not complete. Allow your mind to be present.
Learn things from first principles and work your way up. The use of AI has presented another trap. Do not become a lazy user who relies on it so that you do not have to know anything. You begin to die, slowly. Neural pathways weaken and tissues shrink leading to some neurodegenerative conditions. But before that happens, you might lose your job, or remain at a level forever. You will lose any ability to create something worthwhile and any relevance in the world.
Cut It Off
You can choose to delete the app. Retrain your mind to read long-form texts. Buy fiction and envelop yourself in the world. Train your mind to stay with something long enough to improve your attention span, memory, and cognition.
You will become happier because your mind will stop internalising and absorbing multiple emotions and reactions from strangers. You will treat people better because you can trust that your reactions will be more reflective, rather than subconsciously mirroring behaviours you see online. The bubbles in your head will settle, and you will be able to live in the moment and enjoy the things and people you love. You will be able to speak and write better.
The gains are endless.
It’s really good sis, I hope you write more.
Waking up and the first thing I’m reading is this,
Everything you said is completely true. I pray God helps me to become better.
Quite the reflective zone you’ve got us in this morning. Well done, nne. Bring back our brains!
Aha! New word: Smithereens (Fragments or splintered pieces; numerous tiny disconnected items)
I was reading about Elisha today and kept wondering how precise he was in the Prophetic. He knew the thought of the King in far away Syria and saw Gehazi chase Naaman for gifts. I was in awe and wondered why he isn’t rated as high as the major Prophets.
Reading this now just appears like a Prophecy from Elisha. This is accurate ‘word of knowledge’ on who we have become. It’s a programming and I fear it will get worse.
The key to breaking free from this chain is to decide to.
Well-done Nne
I read your article with great interest. I like how you characterized the situation. Admittedly, while reading, I almost succumbed to the ills that you described but had to steer myself to read through each line to get the central message enough to respond. However, I wonder though, what if the issue isn’t as simple as doomscrolling is bad, read more is good? Let me offer two perspectives that might defer from but yet be complementary to your position. None of these is intended to absolve the individual of the responsibility to take action. It just seeks to highlight why decisive action might not be the easiest.
Beyond just a single app or the device, we are contending against a system that is powered by a sophisticated machinery that is engineered by some of the world most brilliant and best paid minds from fields spanning from psychology to neuroscience and funded by the world’s most successful tech companies with deep pockets. It is almost as though our engagement with social media starts from a position of disadvantage (like we are playing catchup) as the system is built to recognize our most innate and complex biologically processes, way better than any single individual can truly understand themselves, and very proactively continues to adapt, evolve, and even lead and direct our biology. The “algorithm” isn’t fiction or fluke. It is an intentional, well designed, powerful “force” behind the scene, that “lives, responds and grows” off each individual engagement with it that is then applied to the collective.
Consider, also that it could be the case that neuropsychologically, we are lagging in our evolution to meet the new ways that media is presented. The same book that I’d struggle to read now, I would listen to entirely as an audiobook and be able to at least comprehend and take away the central concepts . Admittedly, presently, it is not anywhere as sufficiently enjoyable as I think it would be if I actually read the book. But could that be an indication that we might need to consume media differently as humanity evolves?