Why can't I stop scrolling?
Moving from flight, fight, freeze and fawn responses into deepening our connection, creativity, curiosity on social media
Image Description - A photo of me as a child making something from bits of paper and tissue, taking it very seriously it seems, which is usually a sign that I’m actually really enjoying it.
As a child, I wasn’t the biggest fan of rollercoasters, and so on a trip to Lego Land, I found myself temporarily soothed by the ‘Pirate Goldwash’, where you were given a giant sieve and were tasked with filtering the gritty sandy water for flecks of ‘gold’. Over the last few weeks, when I’ve found myself incessantly scrolling on social media, I’ve thought of LegoLand. To me, scrolling is a temporarily soothing search for glittery rewards. It’s also a bit of a rollercoaster.
I think the impulse behind scrolling might map onto the different stress responses - fight, flight, freeze and fawn. Sometimes scrolling feels like a frantic almost desperate hunt for inspiration, information, glimmers, things to direct what I’m feeling towards (a ‘fight’ response maybe?). Sometimes scrolling feels ‘mindless’, dissociative, numbing (a ‘freeze’ response maybe?) . Sometimes scrolling feels like I am avoiding or running away from something (a ‘flight’ response maybe?) Sometimes scrolling feels like I am searching for something to affirm a feeling or opinion I have, like I am outsourcing trust for myself or my own knowledge (a version of ‘fawn’ maybe?). Sometimes it’s a sort of ‘off’ feeling that is perhaps an amalgamation of them all.
It's incredible that we’ve distilled and outsourced all of this human experience into one small object. (What a way to profit! Monetising emotionally charged content, designing algorithms that pick up on where we put our attention, making scrolling addictive and perpetually unfulfilling, leaving us wanting more and feeling like we’re less.) All that outsourcing means we look away from the fact that we experience stress but also connection, creativity and curiosity in our bodyminds first and foremost.
I’ll give you an example of how I can attempt to override my stress responses and turn to my phone. Let’s say I was in ‘fight’ mode: imagine I was feeling angry about something that had just happened to me. I may not notice that I am feeling tension in my body, the way I’m clenching, the feeling that I need to push my energy outwards. Or I might notice it but not feel able or safe enough to do something about it at that moment. At the first sign of discomfort, I might pick up my phone and start scrolling. In doing so I override what needs to happen to ‘complete the stress cycle’ and get back to a calmer state: be that crying, moving in certain ways, expressing myself or advocating for my needs.
The obvious solution here is would be to become mindful of my body and its needs, to listen to what its telling me and then do something (ideally embodied) about it. I have found that there are times when, given practice, that is possible. But I think it’s important we talk about why we can’t always do that.
There are reasons a person could find it harder to be attuned to their specific needs and emotions. For example, many of us have altered states of proprioception (or bodily awareness) due to neurodiversity, chronic pain, and mental health difficulties. Whilst some may be able to follow their bodily signals and for example go for a run, others may be unable to do so due to disability or illness. Equally we may not have access to the time or resources to meet our needs immediately. There may also be times in our lives at which we aren’t able to stay with every strong feeling because we haven’t yet had access to the skills we need or the relationships and environments in which it is safe to do so.
If we look to attachment theory, whilst all of us experience the physiological signals of distress, we may feel unable to safely express distress due to the way our healthy expression of distress was received and our needs were met as a child. To give one example of how this can manifest, we may become avoidant, and appear ‘fine’ in our words and our actions, when in fact our bodies are showing all the signs of nervous system dysregulation. Equally we can become anxious. As adults we can learn to become securely attached, but until then our default behaviours will show up in relationship to the world around us, and social media is a part of that world.
Another way to move through stress cycles is the expression of emotion. But we hold strong cultural norms about the ‘appropriateness’ of emotions in a given context. Some of it has to do with how we treat particular people when they are ‘emotional’ - for example, to go back to my example, if I were to express anger (even in a calm measured way) as a woman it is likely I would be perceived as bossy. If I were to cry (even in a way that was contained and self soothing) it would be likely I would be perceived as hysterical, irrational, manipulative or too much. I’ve had many experiences of following what my body is asking for in terms of expressing my emotions which have been met with social disapproval and rejection. All of this has a significant impact on both the relational and material realities of my life. This is not to mention the ways in which emotional expression, when received within certain contexts can threaten the physical and financial safety of the person. Some of it has to do with emotional labour - the way we are supposed to feeling in a given setting, and how if we don’t perform that emotion we could lose our employment. Some of it is do with whether the surrounding people have the capacity to be attuned and listening when we are expressing ourselves. Strong emotions will feel inappropriate in a culture that doesn’t value building a world in which we mutually tend to one another.
People often lament about young people spending so much time on their phones, but don’t think about how we don’t do enough to create trauma informed environments were they can safely practice being vulnerable with those around them. So they, understandably, and resourcefully, turn towards their phones at an attempt to self-soothe.
We use social media in ways that seek to move us out of stress responses and into a regulated and calm state. Sometimes scrolling feels like hunger or longing for the states that are easier to access when we’re outside of our stress response: for example, connection, creativity and curiosity. I often reach for my phone in a bid for connection, which often doesn’t end up being very fulfilling. Often social media is how we find people like us, particularly if it is unsafe to be our full selves in our immediate surroundings. Sometimes I want to be creative, and social media displays the creativity of others and can inspire us. Sometimes I want and need information, I follow my curiosity and find things on social media that I wouldn’t find elsewhere. But for me, accessing these states with social media requires a deep intentionality - I have to constantly bring myself back. It doesn’t help to shame ourselves or others into stopping using social media. For me, straightforward abstinence doesn’t serve without an alternative mechanism to meet the needs. And whilst I seek to also meet my needs in my world outside of social media, I want to spend the rest of this blog thinking about how ways to engage with social media that can make it feel like I’m operating more from my ‘self’ and rather than from within and in resistance to the stress responses.
Deepening curiosity
Often social media is where I find out things that I have less access to in mainstream media, and this is very valuable. However, when I do find helpful information, it is rare that I have the impetus to step away and find out more, and learn more deeply. Recently however, having read something in an infographic that made me question things, I stepped away and wrote about it. I wrote down all the questions I had, all the hesitations, the limits of their perspective, the limits of mine. It felt better, engaging in that way. It reminded me that I had the capacity to engage, not just consume.
It reminded me of what I already know, thus restoring some trust in my own instincts and insights. And it showed me what I wanted to learn, thus moving me from my stress response and into a space of creativity and curiosity.
The act of engaging to make sense of the information I found created narrative. Narrative is one of the most soothing things humans do. This whole process took less time than the average screen time I’d been logging, and it gave me energy.
To carry on the gold mining metaphor, this process made me think where do you already have the treasure (knowledge, insight) within your reach? Where can you appreciate what you already have and already know? Where do you need more information? These questions help form a more intentional strategy.
Deepening connection
I often turn towards my phone in an attempt to connect with people, this is a impulse I’m trying to honour. Connecting with other people is the root of collaboration, delight and intimacy. One way in which I find myself coming close to connection with others on social media is through storytelling. When I read the caption of a post about a person’s life experience, in some ways I get a flicker of intimacy.
When I was working to support students become Press Ambassadors for a mental health organisation, I attended a talk by Brene Brown in which we talked about how we can support young people in sharing their mental health stories. She shared that it is best to first be vulnerable with people who have earned your trust before you are vulnerable (in a more boundaried and safe way) with broader circles or the public. Oversharing or forced fast intimacy can often be an attempt to hotwire connection. But that that connection doesn’t often last.
As a story sharer broadcasting to a wide audience, I often feel like my sharing doesn’t result in the sort of connection I might need in proportion to the importance of the story or the emotional state I was in when posting it. This isn’t because people don’t care, I am grateful for the comments and messages. Nor is this me saying sharing stories is bad, just that it’s important to be attentive to the need for connection you may be trying to access. Sometimes, I need to speak to someone who knows me on the phone and hear their live response, sometimes I need a hug. I’ve had to think carefully about how to ensure social media isn’t my primary source of connection or care. In the last few years I’ve tried to start with sharing things with people I trust and then later sharing with those in wider circles.
To be clear, this isn’t about filtering yourself to be ‘appropriate’ or hiding aspects of yourself, but rather its about thinking about who has demonstrated that they can hear from you when you are most vulnerable, and meet you with meaningful attuned and caring connection. It may be that your social media circles fulfil that need. It may be that at this point in your life, with what you are going through, those on social media understand things better than those around you. It may be that you aren’t yet in the position to change your immediate surroundings to be with those who you most trust. It may be that you don’t have anyone in your literal immediate surroundings. But immediate could also be a smaller group of people on social media that you trust more, even if they aren’t physically near you. If that’s the case, how can you supplement social media media connections with a practice that brings feelings of safety and connection to your body? In these times where physical closeness is lacking for me, somatic experiencing or vagus nerve regulation exercises and tapping into my senses has helped.
Deepening creativity
I recently attended a poetic writing workshop held by Cat Chong on ‘Crip digitality’. This workshop honoured the way in which many Disabled people turn towards social media for community. This workshop did something to shift some of the shame I feel around using social media. We were encouraged to write about the things that stood out for us in our scrolling. It helped me to see scrolling and sharing images as something akin to flipping through magazines as a teen, cutting out pictures and glueing them to my school books. I was an avid collage maker as a teenager, and I think Instagram has come to be a standin for that (especially at times where I have been drained of physical energy, where my hands couldn’t grip a pair of scissors and a glue stick but they could just about manage a phone).
What I enjoyed about the workshop was the way in which in recognised the magpie instinct in us all. The way in which we’re all on the look out for interesting glimmers and connections between the content and our lives. I liked the invitation to step away and make something based on what we found. Like in what I said about of deepening curiosity, this practice deepened my creativity and I felt like an active participant in my own experience - which is a sure fire way to be brought out of some parts of the stress response.
Final thoughts for today
Mostly, it’s obvious we need to transform the stressors in our lives which send us into stress responses so often. The biggest of these are caused by the dominant culture in which we live. However as a part of this work and whilst we live with the world as is, we cannot just urge ourselves to be mindful, we have to create compassion approaches practices that acknowledge that we are doing our best to take care of ourselves, up against systems that want the opposite for us. Creativity, curiosity and connection have always been with us, and always will be with or without social media. However, as social media is a large part of the fabric of our lives, so being attentive to how it interacts with our needs is the a step to transforming our relationship to it and each other.
With care,
Rachel