Real Reason You Can't Stop Scrolling

Okay you guys, this one is so good and I think it's going to hit for a lot of you.

This episode was inspired by a conversation I had with one of my clients, and honestly? The awareness she showed blew me away. We've been working together on identifying the emotions that are actually driving her actions throughout the day, and what she shared with me was just chef's kiss in terms of how much she's grown.

We're talking about the two to three day benders. You know what I mean. The doom scrolling, the eating like garbage, the canceling plans, the not wanting to do anything. And I'm going to tell you the same thing I tell everyone, your phone is not the problem. The apps are not the problem. The problem is the emotion underneath all of it that nobody is actually helping you identify or deal with.

Blocking apps, locking your phone in a drawer, deleting Instagram for a month none of that is fixing what's actually going on. And I think deep down, most of you already know that.

We're getting into:

• Why your scrolling habit is really just an unmet need in disguise
• What my client's story taught me about the power of self-awareness
• Why willpower-based fixes will always make the urge worse
• What it actually looks like to have a neutral relationship with your phone

There is nothing wrong with you. There is just an emotion that nobody has helped you figure out yet. Let's change that.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What's up, you guys? Welcome back to the Dopamine Diaries Podcast. This is Coach Kate. I got a good one for you today because I don't know. I just think it's relevant. And it was inspired from a conversation that I had with one of my clients. I feel like 90% of my podcast episodes are inspired from conversations with them or just experiences I have in my own life related to a lot of the work and the tools and the things that I put out there for people to use. So, okay. Um we were talking and I talk with her every week, and we have been working a lot on just identifying what emotions are actually like fueling all of her actions throughout the day. And I think that if you are somebody that has ever found yourself in a cycle, I like to call these like two to three day benders where it's like you're scrolling social media nonstop, you are spending way more time on TikTok than you really know you need to, but it's this like insatiable thirst for content, thirst for the out whatever the algorithm is going to give you, and like you feel like shit and you know that you feel like shit, but you just can't. It's the it's the type of doom scroll that like truly becomes robotic. Um, and you feel terrible while you're doing it and you're aware that you don't feel good, but like you can't stop. If you've ever found yourself in a two-day bender of doing that, and then also at the same time, you are um, you know, probably eating in ways that you wouldn't normally eat, um, not doing um things like basic activity or movement or going for walks or exercise or you know, whatever it is that you guys do from a health standpoint, and you're just like overall um outlook and energy and and zest for life is low. Um you cancel plans, work feels really frustrating. If you've ever found yourself in that type of two-day bender, anyone been there? I have those all the time. Not all the time, but I definitely have them. Um, if you've ever found yourself in that type of bender, what I'm about to explain to you, the story that I'm going to tell about um what her and I were talking about is going to give you a lot of hope for how it could be different and how you can actually avoid those things moving forward. And when I say avoid, what I don't mean is giving up, you know, a funny, you know, good-hearted 20-minute laugh on TikTok or catching up with your friends on Instagram or whatever else. I don't mean giving anything up, I simply mean avoiding when the consumption overpowers you. So her and I were talking and she was explaining to me how her week went. And she was like, you know, I found myself watching this video last night, and it was an income transparency video related to her industry that she works in. And as she was telling me this, she was like, I, you know, I don't know why I watched it, but I watched it. And obviously the video did not make her feel great. She locked in on reading every single comment. Um, she thought about the video more than she really needed to, and it just kind of like made her not feel great. And as she was explaining this to me, she said, she's like, What I will say though is I understand why I watched it, and I understand what I was actually feeling when I decided to scroll that day. And I'm like, that is the magic right there. The problem that most people have, you might be listening to this and be like, yeah, this is definitely the problem that I have. And this is what I have been saying over and over and over again in my emails, on my social media. I have been saying it, and I have been really doubling down in the last, I would say, two weeks, um, last part of May and into June. I've really been doubling down. I have been saying over and over and over and over again that the phones, scrolling, social media, the internet, apps, whatever, none of those things are actually the problem. Are they designed like slot machines? Yes. Are they designed in a way to be very addictive? Yes, we know that. We know that these apps were designed to be addictive, but are they the actual problem? No. The bigger problem is that underneath these behaviors, underneath that urge that we have to pick up our phone and do a quick scroll, well, let me just check something really quick. Well, well, I'm bored. Let me see what's going on. Underneath every single decision we make to scroll is an emotion. It's an impulse, it's a feeling of discomfort. How many times have you guys actually been in a super regulated space and been like, I'm just gonna do a quick 10 minutes? I kind of just want to like laugh for a little bit. Some of you guys maybe, but most of you guys not. Most of you guys pick up your phone without even realizing it. You pick up your phone in between transitions. Like, I don't know, walking from room to room. How many of you guys take your phone with you to the bathroom? How many of you guys pick up your phone at a stoplight? How many of you guys are on your phone while you're driving? How many of you guys are on your phone while you're on a Zoom meeting? How many of you guys are on your phone while you're watching Netflix or TV at the end of the day? No, it's habitual. We pick our phones up more than we realize. How many times have you guys gone into your um settings on your phone and where you can find your screen time, click on your report and it will actually show you how many times you picked up your phone. Have you guys actually looked at that number? How many of you guys have a pickup number of over a hundred? Literally go look right now. Go look right now as you're listening and come back and tell me. Find me on social media and tell me. We pick up our phones habitually. We pick up our phones in an effort to numb what we're feeling. We pick up our phones in an effort to avoid what we need to do. We pick up all our phones all of the time in response to an emotion. And blocking phones, locking phones in a drawer, leaving them in another room, um putting screen limits on apps, that is not actually fixing the problem underneath the scroll, the problem underneath the apps, the problem underneath the phone, which is the emotion. It's the dysregulation that is creating this urge that we have to find relief. Of course it's our phones. It's the thing that we carry with us all the time. It's the thing closest to us. It's the thing that is so quick. We don't actually have to try that hard to find relief. Of course it's our phones. Blocking apps, putting your phones in a drawer does not actually fix the emotion. You will go find relief for that emotion in some other way. You will find relief for that emotion in food. You will find relief for that emotion in being completely disconnected from your family wherever you are at. You will find relief for that emotion in shopping. You will find relief for that emotion in turning the television on. Like the problem is truly that none of us have a lot of practice because we don't have to. We don't have a lot of practice of sitting with what we're feeling and being familiar enough to know what it actually needs. So we just don't. We just pick up our phones and scroll. And the ability to recognize what we are doing, the ability to recognize when something makes us feel not so great. Like the ability to be like my client when she said, when she was telling me this on the phone, she's like, Yeah, you know, I do scroll last night for a little bit. Um, and you know, my mornings kind of started off a little bit rough. The ability for her to connect the dots on that versus be like, I don't know, I just feel off today. And then that offness leads into her not taking care of herself, her eating a bunch of crap, her continuing to scroll, her getting behind on work, her canceling plans with her friends. No, when she woke up and told me about this, she was able to identify exactly what it was. She was able to be so specific about the thing that created the moment that now she feels discomfort around. She literally said, I have been off all morning, and I know it's because of this video that I watched last night. That awareness, that awareness is huge because without that awareness, she would simply be experiencing that discomfort, feeling off, and then continuing to look for relief to not feel it anymore, which is not the actual solution to neutralizing the emotion she has, which overarching was just how the video made her feel about her own career and where she's at in it. Scrolling more, eating a bunch of stuff, shopping, watching TV is not gonna fix what feeling got brought up about her in her career right now, or in her personal development or professional development. Most of everyone's problem is not that we are scrolling or that we have social media or screen time. The problem is that we are so disconnected. We are like pivoted so far away from what we are experiencing, what we feel. And it gets to a point where we can't even use these apps, get on our phones in a neutral place. We are using this technology from a dysregulated place, and we are hoping that technology will make us feel better. And when it doesn't, we just think that consuming more is the answer. Like, how many of you guys literally count down the minutes till bedtime just so you can scroll in peace? Of course. It's stressful if you have kids. It's stressful as hell sometimes, isn't it? Of course, you want something that feels kind of like a break, but then it keeps you up until 2 a.m. And then you're tired and you wake up tired, and because you woke up tired, you feel a little bit off. You're not really rested, and because you're not really rested, you feel a little bit anxious. And because you're not rested, and because you feel a little bit anxious, you eat shit for breakfast and keep scrolling through work, and then it just gets more and more and more and more, and then you're snapping at your husband, you're snapping at your kids, and then you get hit with mom guilt by 9 p.m. the following day. And again, you wonder by the time they go to bed, man, what is wrong with me that I can't just enjoy this time home with my family? What is wrong with me that all I want to do is just be on my phone? Well, there's nothing wrong with you, like there's literally nothing wrong with you. There's just an emotion that nobody is helping you identify. And even if they are helping you identify that, they're not actually giving you anything to help resolve that emotion. Oh, we'll do breath work. What are we doing breath work on if we don't even know what's bothering us? Literally, like most of the problem comes down to awareness. Most of the problem is the fact that we all have crazy strong impulses to find relief. We are like wired, wired to find relief, to seek control, to literally find anything that makes us feel okay. And some of your guys' versions of okay is pure chaos. Well, that's what we actually have to work on. Bricking your phone, setting a screen limit thing app or whatever, you know, logging out of Instagram for a month, that is not going to fix the problem. Like the thing that you guys that all of us are scrolling from is honestly way louder than the thing that we are scrolling to consume. And we kind of have to face that. We have to figure out what that is. So I just wanted to share that story because I think when we bring up the conversation of phones and screen time again, I the solution that we all think that is out there is brick the phone, delete the apps, or just put your phone down. Okay, well, fair, but if your brain is still on fire and if your brain is still using every ounce of willpower it has to fight the urge to look, are we really fixing the problem? It's like, think about it, like it's the whole argument with um suites. Well, if you if you restrict suites, you're gonna want them more, right? Well, if you restrict social media, you're gonna want it more. Wouldn't you want to just build a better relationship with it? Wouldn't you want to build a relationship that feels really neutral with your phone? Wouldn't you want to feel completely in control of your scrolling? And when you know it's time to stop, you just stop and you don't feel like you need a little bit more, or you don't suddenly then feel like it's this uphill battle to get motivated to work. God, how many how many times do you guys scroll and then put your phone down and try and work? And it's like, I just can't focus. Of course you can't. You just consumed 85 opinions from a hundred people in 10 minutes. Your brain, popcorn brains all over the place. Of course you can't focus. Wouldn't you rather take a more neutral approach and create a very neutral relationship with your device? They're not going anywhere. Like they're not going anywhere. And if you're a parent, what are you gonna like not have social media when your kid grows up and has social media? Fat fucking chance, bro. I'm gonna be on my daughter's social media page left and right. I better have a good relationship with social media myself. Otherwise, the stress of her being on it is gonna really send me over the edge. And Lord knows what I'm gonna be doing to cope at that point. Wouldn't you want to develop a really strong relationship with this? I would. I want to know that every time I pick up my phone, I get to be so neutral about it. I want to know that every single time I'm having a hard day, I am aware of it. I know it. I can sense when it's coming versus be very reactive and try and fix it after I've spiraled into Lord knows what. Some of us scroll and consume and and have a dopamine problem because honestly, nobody has ever questioned why we all do it. And a lot of us are doing it out of a means to survive, and I can really acknowledge and name that too. There was a time where I scrolled TikTok nonstop, and it was at the peak of my grief. And it was easier to be on TikTok than it was to sit with my sadness, and that is a very real reality for a lot of people. And that's okay. But what are we doing about it? Locking our phones up, bricking our phones, deleting apps, throwing our phones into the forest, and pretending that if we just get rid of it, get rid of the problem, the problem will go away. No, the problem will not go away. The problem will show up in some other habit. Let's identify the solution to the problem, which is a need that you have that is being unmet, that you are finding relief from by being online. When we can like reverse engineer it that way, that's how you get to have a very neutral relationship with social media. That's how you get to have a very neutral relationship with your phone. That's how your phone goes back to being something that connects you versus something that consumes you. And if you don't believe me, you can ask every single person that just did wired. I had them do an assessment at the beginning, and I had them do an assessment at the end of that five-week experience. And I measured the impulse, I measured the reactivity, I measured their um screen addiction, I measured how fragmented their thinking was, like how like all over the place they were, like how could they focus? I measured that like tangible, quantitative data, I measured it. Every single person, not one person got left behind. Every single person saw an improvement across the board of over 30%. And I did not ask them to delete their apps or throw their phone into a drawer and lock it up. Every single one of them have a much more neutral relationship with their phone and social media, and now have full awareness around what they're actually feeling when they go to pick it up. That is the whole point. That is all.