Scrolling Deprives You Of Agency, Programs Your Thoughts, and Makes You Hate Yourself

Real person here. I need your support. The robots are trying to take my job, but my work is WAY better! Thanks for being a human being too!Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offLast week I did something without fully understanding why. I acted on instinct. Some internal part of me screamed, “Enough!” and set me on a course of action to break me out of a malignant routine.Over the last few months, I’ve been weary. I’ve been manic. I’ve been writing at a breakneck pace. I’ve been conducting interviews for four or five hours a day.Everything is rush, rush, rush. There’s a sense of urgency and I can’t place the point of origin.But then, out of all the chaos came an impulse to, of all things, listen to the Beatles.I haven’t listened to the Beatles in years. I had a rough childhood, but listening to the Beatles provided some moments of calm. We had the greatest hits albums that come in the blue and red packaging.Those are easy enough to find, but as I reached for the mouse, my body recoiled. Some internal force sent me away from the streaming services.“Get a CD,” came some disembodied whisper. I’ve listened to that voice before. I found a CD, sent off payment, and the next day it arrived.I went out to the backyard with my CD player and built a fire. I stared at the flames as the music played.Little by little, the displaced, frantic, urgency began to fade.It felt odd to stare at a fire. In many ways, fire seems like staring at a screen. It flickers. It erupts. It dances. As I listened to the Beatles, I found myself remembering what reality felt like.I’d chosen the music. It wasn’t the radio. It had been me.I’d built the fire. I built it with my own hands. It was real. It could burn me. I’d made it. It had been me.An hour later, I emerged a different person. I had a sense of peace that I hadn’t experienced for years. I decided to start pulling back. I cancelled many of my regular appointments. The next day, I got my paddleboard out of storage and went onto the river.In the course of twenty-four hours, I reclaimed two hours of my time, and I haven’t felt this good in years.This is a routine I’ve been following for the last two weeks. It’s a form of mental detox. Your telephone has a feature that lets you know your screen time every week. I’ve been distressed to see my screen time rising. I hadn’t noticed that I’d been using my phone more, yet every week I gave the algorithms a few more minutes.Creep, creep, creep.Every second you spend in that zombie state with your thumb upon the screen, you’re turning over your ability to choose. Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offScrolling provides the illusion of a choice. The mechanism is similar to reading. Your eyes go from left to right and then down the page. You think, “I’m not engaging, I’m skimming, I won’t provide my full attention until I get to something good.”That’s self-deceit.That’s how they get you.You see, the awful men that we all hate, control everything. These are the toxic males whose skin is pale from constantly staring at the light of a computer screen. They don’t go out on the river. They don’t paddle. They don’t exercise. The closest they come is playing video games.They hate the real world. They hate fire except for leveraging its power to make the world burn. Whenever you scroll, you hand them the keys to your mind. They burrow in and recklessly labor to make you like them.You see, they control everything. No matter how long you scroll, no matter how many things you flick away with your thumb, the house always wins. They’ll never show you anything you want to see. They only provide you with trash that benefits them.The other day I reflected on all the old movies I’d like to see which have somehow gone away. They aren’t on any streaming services. I wanted to watch “The Fisher King” with my kids. Where is it? Where’s “JFK”? Where’s “The Last Valley”? Why are so many old films unavailable? Do these movies have messages that the tech bros don’t want us to see? Are they waiting for all the old people who remember to quietly fade away?People like me?I don’t want to scroll through titles. I want a spreadsheet. Let me know the films and the names and the dates. I want a feed I can curate. We aren’t given those choices. The tech bros know that if they gave us choice they would surrender control.Control, control, control.That’s what compelled me to seek outdated technology and sit in the yard to force myself to contemplate tangible reality.They control us through the screens, but we can take back control by turning them off.We are living through an era of recalibration. Social media has poisoned us. It’s a new thing and we didn’t recognize the danger. It’s has leveraged our senses and turned them against us.I grew up in the 70s. Even then we were assailed by loud and obnoxious advertisements on radio and TV. At first, you’re overwhelmed. You feel compelled to rush out and buy every little thing. You need the new toy, the new appliance, the new fashion, the new engagement ring.But at some point, your mind steps in and grabs control of the reigns. Our flight response pays attention to the smashes and the bangs, but when your nervous system determines that there is no risk, the internal volume gets turned down.Today, we can listen to advertisements without even hearing them. They’ve lost their power. They’re more suggestions than commands. We don’t rush to make those purchases.But scrolling is different. It compels us in a way we don’t understand. When you can’t find the movie you want by scrolling, you eventually settle on something the algorithm recommends.Eventually, you stop looking yourself. You just take what they give.Your mind is no longer your own.I didn’t recognize this consciously, but my body did. I purchased a CD. I went outside. I stared into the burning embers. For a long while, some part of me screamed, “Get your phone! Get your phone! This is boring! Think of all the things you’re missing!”But I stayed.And the annoying voice faded away.I don’t want the stinky toxic male tech bros deciding what I believe. I want to go out on the lake. I want to be strong. I want to feel the sun on my skin. I want to decide what I think.Stop scrolling.Stop giving them your mind.They don’t care about you. They don’t care about what you want. Make deliberate choices, and stop supporting toxic mechanisms that deprive you of yourself.Tell your kids.Tell everyone.Just say “No” to to the toxic doom scroll.You’re giving up more than you know.Thanks for your support: 30% off 💙 40% off 💙 50% off 💙 60% offI'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. 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