Stop Scrolling And Start Strolling

I started this article a few weeks ago. I researched ranting, venting, and changing things. Today is the day! 

The scrolling I am referring to is related to social media. The strolling? Get up, walk away, and go for a walk. 

The scrolling of social media. Up, down, sideways, and all around. Death, birth, marriage, divorce, rants, and raves. All within a few inches of digital real estate. And as our eyes look for cute little pets and smiling children, we are assailed by everything in between. Add in avatars, memes, and videos and we are “all fulled” up in a matter of minutes. But, do we stop? No. Because discipline is harder than nature. 

I am convinced a human can only process so much information. 

The scroll takes a toll

Social media pushes the limits of that. (The average person BEFORE the crisis was spending 2 hours and 33 minutes with 2 hours and 24 minutes of that time devoted to Facebook. That’s 10% of our day.) 

The crisis, the protests, and everything in between has taken a lot of energy. The “unfortunate” part is that most social media postings don’t change people’s opinions and yet so much energy is devoted to the process. (Rants, raves, rights, venting and opinions may be healthy, but where is the change? Don’t get me wrong the actual protests are getting to dialogues, but social media…not so much.) Again, how much information can we appropriate? 

Full disclosure- I am a “child of the 60s.” I am 16 years old with 48 years of experience. ? I was a protestor. I embrace the value of peaceful protests. BUT I also got caught a few times amid violence. (Not my own, but others.) I determined early on that protests were great, but I needed to put action to make changes. 

The scroll works against your soul 

Dale Carnegie said, “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudice, and motivated by pride and vanity.”  

We can scroll past the people we don’t like. But then we run into the surprise. The death, the birth, the rant, the diatribe. We have scrolled down the hole. 

Now like many, I do believe our minds are like “supercomputers”. And if they didn’t get caught up in the web of chemicals, hormones, and emotions, well, they would be unstoppable. (If we weren’t affected, there is a word for those who do not respond to outside stimuli and the web. Sociopath.) Remember that EVERYTHING is intertwined and twisted together. Most of the difficulties we encounter is when we make the attempt to move past our reasoning. (I am not talking about running a race.) 

We scroll and lose control

Most of us got on Facebook for one of two reasons. We began with the idea that we would communicate with friends and family or for business purposes. For those who arrived for personal reasons, I don’t think we thought it was going to be a daily battle to navigate amongst sponsored ads of our last search or conversation, the amount of political bashing and turpitude, or the downright meanness. Many would not allow this to go on in their homes, but somedays social media is like the wild West. (I have been on Facebook over 12 years and on the internet since 1995 before Google was a twinkle in its creators’ eyes. And we must negotiate all the stuff to see a picture of a new baby, the graduating teen or marriage of good friends.) 

Create a goal of leaving the scroll

There are always a couple of choices. Leave. Stay and be overwhelmed. Or…Practice principles of kindness and love (And do some weeding. Some opt for snooze and block buttons.) 

Make the goal to determine what and who you want to see. 

Where does that leave us? 

Sometimes, we just need to stop scrolling and start strolling. Take a walk. Read a book. But walk away. Reduce your time on social media.  

And maybe it is time to put your beliefs into action. What are you passionate about? Begin to embrace it. 

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Thank you! 

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