Infinite Scrolls, Ancient Wiring; Our Brains Can’t Keep Up

The Goldfish Lie and The Sigh That Follows

They say our attention span is shorter than a goldfish's, and while that claim has been debunked, the feeling still sticks. I sighed before even starting this piece. Just because the mere act of starting something, anything, these days feels like trying to climb out of quicksand with buttered hands. It's not just about focus, it's about friction. And in a world where frictionless experience is sold to us as a feature, we've lost our tolerance for mental resistance.

Credit: Cottonbro Studio

Doom scrolling isn't a new concept now, but the ache behind our eyes and that hollow tug to the screen at 3AM? That small dent on your pinky? That's becoming the norm. We're not bored, we're overfed and undernourished, in mind, mood & memory.

Algorithm Taking Over Time Like It's Pac-Man

At some point, I stopped being a night owl and became a doom dove. Fluttering from video to video, app to app, post to post, waiting for that perfect hit of dopamine or rabbit hole to dive into and lull me to sleep. But it doesn't come, instead I'm fed another clip, then another and then some. The Sun's threatening to rise.

TikTok's infinite scroll doesn't just eat away time, it metabolizes your sense of presence. When the screen becomes your lullaby, the lines between waking and dreaming blur. You wake up feeling like you've already lived a day, and not a good one.

Brain Rot is Real, and It’s Been Marketed to Us

Let’s not pretend this is accidental. If you’re feeling more anxious, more fragmented, more exhausted than you were a decade ago. Congratulations, you’re paying attention. But only just.

Brain rot is the colloquial term. Tech fatigue. Cognitive fragmentation. Call it whatever you want, but it's the same decay under a prettier filter, and it's being monetized by everyone from your favorite streaming platform to your news aggregator. At some point, your attention become a commodity, and now everyone's farming it.

The Myth of Control In the Age of Monkey Brain

Sure, I have control. I can close the app, but being aware doesn't mean being immune. When I tell myself I'll just check instagram for five minutes, my monkey brain overdrives; because five minutes in algorithm time is a joke.

It's like handling a toddler a flamethrower and expecting them to toast marshmallows. The tools aren't designed for restraint. They're designed to entice.

As someone who works in media, and for a center like Alpha Healing Center. I'm hyper aware of how mental wellness is marketed versus how it's actually experienced. Even the professionals have to dodge the algorithm's pull.

Infinite Scroll, Holes In Memory Within Rabbit Hole

There was a time when you could scroll to the bottom of your feed. You'd know you were done. You felt content, that time is gone. Now, social media is an all you can eat buffet with no exit sign, scrolling content endlessly.

And the food? Largely empty calories. You consume more, remember less, and feel worse. We're losing not just time, but context. Memory isn't just about recall. It's about sequence, but the scroll has no beginning, no middle and certainly no end now.

Morality In A World Of Infinite Info

Here's where it gets philosophical. What even is truth anymore? Is attention the new morality? Because if you believe something long enough and loud enough, it becomes true on your feed. Governments get away with war. Influencers sell you serotonin in a bottle. Superman bleeds if the algorithm says he does.

Truth is personalized. Morality is customizable. And our feed keeps spinning, oblivious to the weight of it all.

Let's Be Bored Again

Remember boredom? That slow, crawling, beautiful nothingness? When the ceiling was entertainment, and your thoughts were loud enough to hear?

Now we chase stillness like it's an endangered species. I've tried to find it again, reading, staring at a wall, even travelling without music. Letting your brain and senses relax shouldn't feel rebellious. But it does.

Boredom is healing. Boredom is mental space, and the fact that we've vilified it in the hustle of hyper productivity is a tragedy.

The New Sisyphus: Creators & Digital Exhaustion

Being at my role at Alpha Healing Center, I see both sides. We want to educate, inspite, reach. but we're also feeding the beast. Every reel, every caption, every upload. It's a brick in the tower. It's fulfilling and it's draining. Because healing isn't optimized for metrics. Real progress doesn't go viral, you can't SEO a breakthrough.

Yet we try, because in the attention economy, relevance is currency. And even those preaching detox are doing it on a platform that thrives on retention.

Who's To Blame?

It'd be easy to pin it all on Big Tech. And yeah, the corporations aren't innocent. But there's also a complicit silence in all of us. The shrug that says, "Well, that's just how it is now." But just because something is normalized doesn't mean it's natural. Your brain isn't broken for being overwhelmed. It's adapting to a system designed to overload it.

The good news? You can opt out, even briefly. And those moments of disengagement? That's resistance. That's rebellion. That's you remembering your humanity.

Finding Stillness In The Scroll

At Alpha Healing Center, we talk a lot about presence. And not the instagram kind. We're talking about genuine, breath in your body, rooted awareness. Because healing isn't about avoiding tech, it's about using it consciously.

Our clients often walk in with brains fried by years of digital overexposure. Their nervous systems are shot, their sleep cycles demolished. But with the right environment, tools, and support, the clarity returns. Not all at once, but enough to make the infinite scroll feel finite again.

Button: Romanticize Silence Again

What if we made silence sexy again? What if stillness became aspirational? What if the coolest flex wasn't being booked and busy, but being bored and balanced? This isn't nostalgia for a pre digital era. It's a reclamation, of our attention, time and minds.

In the end, It's simple: What you water, will grow. If you give your brain nothing but brain rot, it will crave chaos. But give it space, and it will stretch. Rest. Recover. And maybe even surprise you.

At Alpha Healing Center, we remind people that healing isn't linear, but it's possible. Even when the scroll feels infinite.

You're not a goldfish, you're a person. With the power to redirect your gaze. Your attention is sacred. So spend it like it matters.

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Resources:

• My Sleep paralysis demon told me.