Addictions
I spent last afternoon about three hours of my life, just scrolling through social media and watching Youtube. It was not a day where I had nothing else to do. I had a long list of to-dos left over. But I still spent the afternoon inside of the brain-rot.
This makes me think about drug addicts. Its really sad to see that their lives can just be consumed by drugs. Day in and day out nothing but living in the illusion of life, blinded by overpowering, brain bending stimulants. They just lose most of their lives stuck in this endless cycle of running away from these things and running towards them. Its not like they don't want to get out of it, they very well do, but the quicksand is a bit too fast.
All this makes me think about how addictive modern day entertainment is. Back in the day with giant CRT TVs and a fixed schedule cable, entertainment was al ot less in control and life was a lot more in line. You could not force the TV to start playing your favorite show, you had to find something else to do or just rotate around the 20 odd channels to kill time. It was nowhere near the world we live in right now.
Now, we have highly paid psychologists trying to design algorithms to keep you hooked to the screen with a seemingly endless supply of entertainment. It just feels like a really unhealthy snack now. But sometimes it becomes more than a snack, it seems to hook into your brain and seep out ever last ounce of focus and concentration.
To me, it doesn't feel any different to how a drug addict feels. When I'm on it, I feel like this is all I needed in life, and when I'm off it I just want to go back - open it and keep scrolling.
To be perfectly clear, I'm still living a normal life. Unlike a drug addict I haven't reached the point where I can't balance normal life and this drug. I can. But there are moment where I feel life all the hours spend on the scroll could be spent better off doing something else, writing, cooking, talking to real friend, almost just anything else.
I wish we all can move towards a world where these diseases don't take up all the space in everyone's lives.
Written as part of Blaugust 2025 📧 Reply via email