As likes, comments and shares take on the real world, the line between reality and illusion starts to fade away. These platforms are curated in such a manner as to snare your attention, keeping you hooked, constantly looking for an update. Excessive use of social media causes psychological cravings. It often starts with a picture you post on social media; a constant need for validation fills the air around you. Following that, when you receive a like, a share or a favourable comment on the post, it triggers the release of dopamine in the brain. It acts as a ‘reward’. The more you are rewarded, the more time you will want to spend on social media, even if it becomes detrimental to other aspects of your life. The over accessibility of social media and its hyper-connectivity can trigger impulse control problems. Constant alerts and notifications affect concentration and focus, disturbing your sleep cycle.
Human beings are social creatures constantly looking for companionship as they navigate their way through life. These relationships have a huge impact on our mental well-being. Socialising in real life can boost your confidence level, ease out your stress and anxiety level as well as shape your understanding of overcoming challenges in real time. On the other hand, a lack of social connections can take a serious toll on one’s mental and emotional health. In recent times, many of us rely on social media platforms such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, Instagram and many more to find and build connections. With social media having its own benefits, we should always keep in mind that it can never be a replacement for real-life human connections. These technologies that are designed to bring people closer, spending time online, intend to make you feel more isolated and lonely – exacerbating mental health problems.
With increasing screen time, our attention span has been sacrificed. Long-form essays, documentaries, and even conversations have been squeezed into digestible, looping, often context-free fragments. Everything is ‘bite-sized’, from news and recipes to mental health advice and historical summaries. And while this democratises access, it also flattens complexity. The algorithm, not the audience, becomes the curator. Outrage gets more traction than nuance. A seven-second take gets more visibility than a 1,000-word analysis. And so, we’re not just scrolling through content — we’re scrolling through distortion, distraction, and dopamine loops. In a world where much of our identity is curated online, social media isn’t just for consumption — it’s a performing platform. We scroll to find the next meme to repost, the next aesthetic to replicate, the next belief to align with or critique. Scroll culture fuels a kind of constant self-fashioning: who we are is partially determined by what we like, share, cancel, or trend. Platforms like Instagram and X (Twitter) turn individuals into brands, and the scroll becomes a portfolio of curated lifestyles. It’s not just about attention anymore; it’s about relevance.
One of the most deceptive illusions perpetuated by social media is the belief that we are better informed than ever before. With 24/7 access to news, commentary, hot news, reels, and bite-sized infographics, we feel plugged into the pulse of the world. But are we truly absorbing anything meaningful — or just drowning in a flood of fragmented facts? In the age of infinite content, exposure is often mistaken for understanding. We scroll past 100 headlines about climate change, but that doesn’t mean we grasp its systemic causes, geopolitical implications, or the nuances between adaptation and mitigation. We might watch a 30-second explainer about a war in a country we can’t locate on a map, and walk away believing we understand decades of conflict. This is not learning — it’s infotainment, dressed up in the aesthetics of awareness.
Scroll culture rewards recognition, not reflection. Algorithms push content that confirms our biases or provokes strong reactions. The result is an endless carousel of controversy and clickbait — designed not to inform us deeply, but to keep us engaged just enough to keep scrolling. Nuance, contradiction, and complexity have no place in a space where attention spans are optimised for three-second decisions. We’ve become curators of secondhand opinions, fluent in buzzwords but often lacking the foundational knowledge behind them. Terms like ‘gaslighting’, ‘late capitalism’, ‘deep fake’, or ‘neoliberalism are tossed around with fluency — not always with accuracy. In this environment, the appearance of knowledge becomes more important than knowledge itself. This phenomenon creates what sociologists call knowledge illusion — the sense that we know more than we actually do. We skim headlines, watch flashy carousels on Instagram, and read outraged Twitter threads — but rarely do we dive deeper. The average user may scroll through hundreds of micro-topics in a single day, yet retain almost nothing by the time their head hits the pillow. The brain, overstimulated by rapid-fire input, becomes conditioned to move on rather than dwell, to react rather than analyse.
Most of us don’t even finish the articles we open. We bookmark things ‘for later’ and never return. We doomscroll before bed and wonder why we wake up tired and anxious. We open apps intending to check one notification and emerge 45 minutes later wondering where the time went. Mindless surfing through social media is not just about wasting time — it’s about a deeper erosion of attention. When the brain is constantly switching between formats, tones, and platforms, it struggles to focus, to read deeply, to rest. We are stimulated, but not satisfied. Informed, but not enlightened. And yet, there is a strange form of resistance embedded in it. People scroll because they feel powerless — politically, socially, existentially. Using social media as a ‘security blanket’ – a minor inconvenience in real life, people start looking for an escape route by logging into the world of illusions. It is a vicious cycle that has become a part of our daily system. Facing problems – escaping to social media – feeling inadequate – unable to face challenges in real life – back to finding an escape route.
Behind every flick of the thumb is a silent plea — for connection, for escape, for meaning. Scrolling through social media has given us infinite access but taken away the depth of real presence. We scroll to stay updated, entertained, distracted — but also to numb the ache of loneliness, uncertainty, or boredom. And in doing so, we often isolate ourselves further, mistaking digital motion for emotional movement. We rarely talk about the fatigue it brings. The anxiety. The mental clutter. The quiet grief of lost time. Because scrolling looks so casual, so harmless, few recognise it as a symptom of something deeper: a culture that glorifies constant stimulation while punishing stillness. A society where attention is the new currency, and silence is mistaken for irrelevance.
We are not addicted to content — we are addicted to not being left alone with ourselves. It’s time we named that ache. Acknowledge the quiet suffering behind the curated feeds and rapid-fire updates. And perhaps began to reclaim our time, our attention, and our inner lives — one scroll-less moment at a time.
The writer is a freelance contributor. Views expressed are personal.