Hoarding-type Scrolling

A minor epiphany about mindless scrolling

Over the past week or so, I started a meditation practice. Well, I guess I restarted one.

I've meditated on and off for years, but it's been a while since I’ve followed a consistent, structured, methodical practice. I have a lot of free time on my hands right now, because I’m recovering from hepatitis A¹, so I figured now was as good a time as any.

Even though it’s only been a few days, I've already gained a lot from this practice. I’ve had a few insights that'll probably be the subjects of their own posts, but today, I’m writing about one in particular:

Why do I mindlessly scroll?

If I’m being honest with myself, scrolling is not very high up on my list of priorities. Here’s a list of things I’d rather do instead:

• Write blog posts.

• Clean my kitchen.

• Meal prep.

• Finish unpacking so I know where all my stuff is.

• Do my laundry so I can get rid of the pile on my floor.

• Call my friends.

• Call my family.

• Play video games.

• Meditate.

• Go touch grass.

• Exercise (although hepatitis A is holding me back from this one).

• Read books.

• Read articles.

• Read blog posts.

It's the last three bullets that interest me.

The two normal types of scrolling

Until now, I have identified two distinct types of scrolling: watching-type scrolling and reading-type scrolling.

Obviously, if I'm scrolling on YouTube shorts or watching Instagram Reels, I'm not going to be in the mood to be reading. That's just not what those platforms are for. As far as I can tell, watching-type scrolling is usually triggered by a desire for human connection, and satisfies that desire by delivering parasocial relationship content to my brain through my eyeballs. Accordingly, when my roommates are home, or when my social life is particularly active, I find myself on YouTube and Instagram less. I just don't feel the need to see someone else engaging in some fun activity or listen to someone else talk to me.

Also, whenever I watch something that I think is funny or interesting, I basically always send it to at least one person who I know will also find it funny or interesting. Memes are a surprisingly powerful avenue for social connection: I’ve defended them before and I’ll do it again.

Reading-type mindless scrolling is different. I’ve caught myself mindlessly reading Substack notes, or sometimes even mindlessly skimming entire Substack posts. I do the same on Reddit. When I find an engaging post, I drop a like, or stop by to leave a comment, or restack it and write a note of my own. In this mode—when I am ostensibly paying attention, but not really reading the words beyond their literal meanings—I find that the purpose behind my reading changes, and that I fully give in to confirmation bias. I’m not reading to change the way I think, learn something new, or challenge my preconceived notions about the world and the self: I’m just reading to see if I agree or disagree.

But, as of late, I’m beginning to identify a third kind of scrolling. Sometimes, if I’m scrolling and find a good post on Reddit, I paste it into my Chrome browser on my phone—and then keep scrolling. And sometimes, if I find a good Substack post, I’ll save it to my queue in Matter (which is a great e-reader app that I do recommend). Instead of reading these posts, I stash them away in the same place. And then…I continue scrolling?

Interestingly, I do a very similar thing with YouTube—so I've actually been doing this since early high school. In two playlists called Watch and Listen, I’ve saved hundreds of YouTube videos that I either want to watch later or listen to later. I have so many videos that I have to clean out these playlists several times each year, and remove the videos that no longer spark joy Marie Kondo-style.

this is one of my favorite images ever created on the internet

I've never heard this phenomenon described before, so I guess it’s on me to come up with a name for it. Let’s call it, uh,

Hoarding-type Scrolling

The hallmark of Hoarding-type scrolling is saving good posts for later instead of reading them now.

Comparisons between social media, algorithmic entertainment, and variable-reward gambling and slot machines have been made countless times over the past few decades. Continuous scrolling feeds ensure that the “fun” never stops: you’ll never scroll to the end. The scrolling gesture, a single thumb swipe, is eerily similar to the pull of a slot machine—just with the direction reversed. And every bad reel or short or note or post that you slog through just makes it THAT much more satisfying when you finally find a good one.

But I've never seen comparisons between scrolling and hoarding. I don't feel like I'm gambling. I feel like a squirrel looking for fat nuts to stash in my little tree hole.

The strangest part of it all? I have more saved content than I could possibly consume in the entire next year. Even just between books, videos, and blog posts, I have thousands of hours left of thought-provoking pieces to read and videos that might actually change how I see the world. This is true of mindless entertainment as well; I have a lot of funny posts saved, and many of my saved videos are just pure spectacle.

I don't really have a solution to this problem. I guess I could limit the amount of scrolling I do? I could mandate that I spend a certain amount of time each day reading pieces from my saved queue? Both of these sound reasonable to me.

But in my heart of hearts, I suspect that the real solution is to finally figure out exactly what urge I satisfy by finding new content, and why it’s so different from actually reading that content. It's probably some combination of a hit of novelty, the happy surprise of finding something worth reading, and my primitive desire to save good things for later.

I think I finally understand hoarders.

And of course, this has reinforced to me for the thousandth time that I should really be meditating every day. It doesn't take much—I've only been doing 5 to 8 minutes daily². But 5 minutes is all I've needed to reap the rewards. To be fair, I’ve had years of prior meditation practice, so it's been quite easy for me to fall back into the habit again. I'm also more than used to dealing with the uncertainty and self-doubt that comes from being inconsistent with habits—but as long as I get back on the wagon, it’s probably not a waste of time. I have no idea how much meditation would benefit you, but if you’ve never tried, I would guess that any amount is better than nothing.

Ultimately, I just want to live more. I want to be more present in my day-to-day life, more aware of the actions I’m taking and choices I’m making. And sometimes, that means scrolling with intent. I'm fine with using technology and social media, so long as I know what I’m using it for. And I'm glad to finally have a name for something I've been doing for so many years: Hoarding-type scrolling.

I tend to believe that greater awareness leads to greater understanding. I really hope that’s true, because I very much want to understand what’s going on. Until then, I suppose I’ll just keep hoarding.

1. Did you know that hepatitis A has an incubation period of 14 to 28 days? This makes it basically impossible for me to know where I got it from.

God, why’d you do that?

2. Although that number will go up as I continue. I’ll let you know if the practice becomes qualitatively different as it does—I anticipate that it might.