Reflections on Doomscrolling

I’m sitting here, next to my youngest daughter, on the couch. I finally decided to run a clean cycle on the oven, and the fan is blowing on high. That means that the show she’s watching on Netflix has the volume up to an audible volume (like 5 clicks higher than normal). And what am I doing?

You guessed it. Doomscrolling.

At first, I told myself that scrolling through LinkedIn was at least better than other social media sites—you know the ones. (And no, I’m not talking about MySpace.) I entertained thoughts like, “I’m building my professional network,” or, “I’m keeping up on the industry,” and even, “this is basically business research.”

And while all those things may have been my true, conscious intention at one point or another, I found that the behavior I was engaging in was incredibly similar to your standard doomscrolling, just with different content. I was inundating my mind with a million different things as my body was sitting there, stationary and sedentary, save the incessant scrolling.

Why? Why over-consume like this? Well, there’s likely some explanation for capitalism encouraging overconsumption. But besides that, I’ve found my doomscrolling is an escape hatch. It’s a procrastination strategy. I can dump time and energy and eyesight and brain cells into scrolling through social media, and though it seems to release some sort of endorphins or something in the moment, it’s really just an empty, time-wasting practice.

Now don’t get me wrong, some “procrastination” can truly be a good thing — it can preserve options and allow you to leverage the principle of Last Responsible Moment. But for me, I noticed I was procrastinating on a few fronts.

First, spending time with my daughter. She’s not going to be 4 forever, but man this show isn’t my jams. I really don’t want to watch it. My daughter doesn’t mind if I don’t watch it either. She just wants me to sit with her because she’s sick.

Secondly, actually furthering my business or myself. I can play at exploration for a while, but really, I need to be setting up accounts, determining offerings, looking for prospective clients, and more. I need to be writing things down (oh, hi, yes, like this blog post), and allowing myself to “be bored” so I can unlock some more creativity.

What I’m finding is that my boredom and escape remedies aren’t actually remedying anything. In fact, they’re taking me further away from my values of connection, growth, and sustainability. And equally as bad, these actions are stifling my creativity.

So to kick off 2023, (or really, anytime) give yourself the gift of presence and maybe also some real boredom. If you found this post by doing some doomscrolling, well, I gotta be honest, I’m glad you’re here 😊 but don’t feel the need to go scroll around more. Take a break. Take a breath. Set your phone down. Close your computer. Make yourself a cheerful beverage (and yes, water can be quite festive – dry January, anyone?!), and enjoy what’s actually important. Happy new year!