What's your screen time?

The Negative Effects of Mindless Scrolling and Over-consumption of Media

Written by: Mikhaela Clarisse R. Tan

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Do you often find yourself scrolling through social media at night when you should be sleeping? Or suddenly realize that you’ve been scrolling on TikTok for 5 hours straight?

With the development of technology, it is inescapable not to succumb to its advanced features and endless updates. Every day, we consume various types of information through multimedia, piquing our curiosity day by day. Social media feeds are created to be limitless; you can browse as much as you want and never run out of posts. Oftentimes, it becomes more inescapable when your feed is personalized and designed according to your liking. Scrolling through posts about your interests may be fun and entertaining, but too much of this will have a negative impact on your lifestyle.

Mindless scrolling is prominent in today’s world. We see people of different ages glued to their phones, even inside the church or during a family dinner. McAfee Security Company describes this behavior as the Zombie Scrolling Syndrome (a.k.a. cell phone addiction), which is defined as "mindless scrolling out of habit with no real destination or benefit." We are more prone to be drawn to mindless scrolling when we watch multiple photographs or videos consistently, when we consume similar content, and when we do so while being uninterrupted.

The Zombie Scrolling Syndrome bears negative effects on many aspects of a person’s life. From my perspective, with infinite scrolling, social media users have adversely altered their lifestyles and real-life interactions. This syndrome mainly affects these three areas of a person's life: productivity, mental health, and physical health. Firstly, mindless scrolling can severely hamper one’s productivity, causing major distractions. Once you get lost in a rabbit hole of content, it is not easy to stop and get out of it. You tend to forget everything that you have to do and start losing track of time. This causes major productivity loss that eventually leads to worse cases, such as mental health implications. Mindless scrolling is also harmful to one’s mental health. This syndrome can cause cases of obsessive-compulsive behaviors, anxiety, and depression. According to Erin Rupp, stories and images appearing in social media feeds create the illusion of endless possibilities that may lead to a sense of urgency and FOMO (fear of missing out). Furthermore, this prevents a person from engaging in real-life interactions that may eventually complicate relationships and cause emotional disconnection. Lastly, scrolling on the internet for a long time results in less exercise, which is detrimental to one's physical health. Too much exposure to blue light screens can cause eye strain, brain fatigue, sleeping problems, and neck or back pain due to bad posture.

As technology continues to advance, more cases of cellphone addiction may arise, primarily causing harm to one’s productivity, mental health, and physical health. I believe that at some point in time, consuming endless streams of media and scrolling through feeds may become man’s greatest addiction. However, this behavior is actually escapable. We have the authority to choose whether or not to succumb to this addictive technology. Though it may not be easy to escape from this, what matters is that we start with awareness of this behavior and its consequences, so that we may take further action towards its prevention.