INTRODUCTION:

"Scroll breaks are normalized.
Hobbies are being replaced:
Mental health (wealth) is questioned.
Making social media injurious to people.”

With the arrival of social media and modern technologies, everything has become handy at the cost of our mental health. From toddlers to the elderly, it affects all ages. In this essay, I intend to discuss the importance of social media on our mental health, highlighting the scrolling syndrome" and how it could be tackled.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

"You are observed by none, like the one on your screen."

Talking about the scrolling syndrome, it is nothing but scrolling through social media apps mindlessly and endlessly without a reason. Hours and hours spent on scrolling release dopamine and also lead to "dopamine anticipation," making us feel extreme pleasure. Without realizing it is just a "temporary pleasure, we end up becoming prey to it. With a free pass to the world of Doom scrolling and zombie scrolling syndrome, we exit with the sign of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), looping around scrolling. Over time, social media apps, especially Instagram and YouTube, observe our content preferences, and suddenly our feed is filled with our favorites, making us completely addicted to them. I do not know whether to call this a coincidence, but when I was researching and writing on this topic, I received a YouTube notification of a video from a channel, "How AI can improve childhood mental health care?" I paused for a while, stuck at the notification with a weird smile, and also taken away by the thought of the incidents that I saw in my PG. One of the helping workers of our PG has a son who's around 5 years old and could scroll on the phone for hours without even understanding what's in it. While AI can help childhood mental health, extreme and overuse of it needs to be scrutinized and kept away from children.

MY SMART-PHONE FREE CHILDHOOD:

“Looking at the kids tied to their smartphones makes my heart ache.
Realizing how everything is fake and their mental health is at stake.”

I’m beyond indebted to my childhood, filled with adorable innocence and not artificial intelligence. I was neither addicted nor stuck at something; instead I was exploring the awe of the universe while the kids nowadays explore the smart phones with their tiny fingers. When I went to a relative’s house, I was terrified knowing their 3-year-old kid was installing multiple gaming apps and barely came out of his room. Sorry, his own world, definitely not a safe one. I’m also reminded of another tragic incident, where the teenage son of a close relative committed suicide just because he was restricted from using the mobile phone. Horrendous, these incidents sound to me and make me wonder, “Are we really leading a healthy social media life or being attracted to malicious traps?” The increase in the count of slaves to social media and mindless scrolling is definitely alarming.

NORMALIZED SCROLL BREAKS:

When scrolling is considered a syndrome, scroll breaks are becoming normalized! We have been trapped so cleverly that we consider scrolling as a break without realizing how it affects us mentally. Triggering our dopamine jumps, laughing, and getting stuck in the comment sections while our fingers scroll is the type of break our brains are used to. There was a time when hobbies were our breaks and had a highly positive impact on our mental well-being. The so-called breaks that we are accustomed to now are nothing but a sign of our deteriorated mental health. I saw a reel in which a man was injured in an accident, and the girl who took her phone to call the ambulance accidentally started scrolling through Instagram reels. This made me think very deeply.

In the name of breaks, we do something that has an extremely bad impact on us, everywhere, all the time.

IMPACT CAUSED BY SOCIAL MEDIA:

From dopamine rushes to sleep deprivation, our mental health is on the verge of destruction. The fact that all that's required for scrolling is just a phone and internet connection makes it so simple for us that we set an unhealthy comfort zone around us and don't dare to come out of it. The practice of feeding toddlers using mobile phones while the mothers are busy scrolling is something very serious and worthy of consideration. I've noticed in myself and people of my ages that once scrolling is over and we need work, the temporary pleasure keeps pulling us towards it, and there occurs the "procrastination problem,” and I highly believe procrastination in me started with the mindless scrolling I do.

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

“As a victim myself, I am trying my best to come out of this addiction.”

My everyday struggles include uninstalling social media apps and re-installing them again because half of my college work is present there.

But here's what I found: useful and healthy tips to keep ourselves busy, but not in the scrolling world.

• Let's not normalize "scrolling" as breaks and replace our hobbies.
• The minute we feel like scrolling, it's better to keep the phone away and go for a mindful walk instead of ending up in mindless scrolling.
• Setting reminders for each app and restricting the usage using the in-built features in our phones.
• Avoid scrolling apps as a source of temporary treatment for depression or anything because it'll only make it worse.
• Accepting that the social media world is a delusion and unplugging it.

CONCLUSION:

"It's high time we enjoy watching the moon rather than enjoying it on our social media stories."

Mental health has a profound impact on our physical health, and we need to take care of it.

"Scrolling will never satisfy our soul."

Once we get rid of the scrolling syndrome, we'll regret the little things that we missed out on in life. So let's make sure that these apps remain apps and a small part of life but not our "entire life"!

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