Social Media Addiction: Mindless Scrolling & Binge Watching

Ever mindlessly scroll through social media to avoid boredom or bad feelings? This meditation helps you become aware of those urges and make conscious choices. It starts with me sharing my inspiration for this & then continues to guide you to pause, identify your emotions, and ask yourself if scrolling will truly make you feel better. I have also included a shorter version for those moments when you don't feel like or don't have the time to go through this whole process. By understanding your needs, you can break the cycle of mindless scrolling and reclaim control of your time.

Transcript

Hi wonderful being,

I'm glad to have you here.

So let me start by telling you why I made this meditation on this particular topic.

2 to 3 weeks ago when I was scrolling on social media,

What happened was that a reel came which made me check in with my body and I became aware of how I was feeling.

At that time I recognized that I was feeling highly stimulated and distracted and as I noticed this you might think that I did the logical thing which is to shut down my phone and do something that makes me feel calm,

Right?

But instead I went on to scroll more reels to distract myself so that I don't have to feel those feelings.

Even if I didn't do the right thing but still something changed in me after that day and I became more aware of this particular habit of mine.

Then after a week from it something else happened.

I noticed that as I was sitting on the sofa of my living room I started feeling bored and my go-to response was to just pick up my phone and click click.

So yeah I opened a social media app and scrolled but this time I was aware of all this happening as I was doing it and I was noticing that my fingers moved automatically without me having any thought that you know let's open the social media app or let's take a break or you know something similar and that's when I realized that I need a process to interrupt this automatic default mode.

So if you are here I'm assuming that your go-to method to overcome the unpleasant feelings like boredom,

Frustration or to feel better is opening your phone or TV and going to any kind of social media or OTT platform and there is nothing wrong with that.

There is nothing wrong with the desire to open social media or an OTT platform but my question to you is that how are you reacting to the fact that you have this desire of using social media or OTT platform itself or how are you reacting to the fact that you act upon this urge now there are usually two ways in which people usually react to this so you might either be succumbing to the desire and indulging in these mindlessly for hours without even realizing it and hence you might be feeling helpless in the face of this urge if you are among those spiritual people or a highly self-critical person then you might be judging yourself for having this natural urge in the first place and if you fall in the second category thinking that feeling these urges is bad in itself then my dear friend you have forgotten that judging the reality is never the way to enlightenment or even to long-term sustainable growth so it's not the natural urge that is the problem the problem is that we either cling to the pleasant experience that social media or watching web series on OTT platform brings or we try to avoid feeling that urge in the first place and these two reactions is what causes unnecessary suffering it's okay to scroll on social media or to binge watch web series and movies on OTT platform as long as you are doing it mindfully let me explain what I mean by that or how to actually do the same I have designed this track to help you while you are actually feeling the urge to open social media or an OTT platform you know when you are actually in the midst of it and cannot put your phone down despite promising yourself I would go back to work or to whatever I was doing in just five more minutes we all know that you are not going to put your phone down or switch off your TV in just five more minutes so if currently you don't feel that kind of an urge then you can either try to remember the last time when you felt the urge to pick up your phone and open any kind of social media or OTT platform so try to remember the last time you indulged in these things you can pause the audio if you need more time because I need you to be in that state of feeling that urge that's why I want you to recall any such moment from your recent life so that you can understand what I am trying to tell you from your recent life so that you can understand this technique and experience the benefit of it firsthand as you are trying to fully recall notice what you were doing just before opening that app you can close your eyes if you need to as you notice what you were doing at that moment look around and see where were you in what position were you were you walking standing sitting,

Lying down now as you try to recall all these details fully embody that experience notice how that urge to open social media how that urge to open social media or switch on your tv felt like in your body if you are not able to recall or connect with that urge currently then you are welcome to pause this track here and you can bookmark it if you are currently feeling an urge or you were able to connect back to that desire then let's get started if you haven't already then I invite you to pause physically and mentally as you pause if you feel comfortable gently close your eyes what emotions are you feeling right now if it is an unpleasant emotion then you might have an urge to avoid feeling the same way by using distractions like social media or binge watching pay attention to where in your body you feel this urge the most in which body part do you feel this urge as you locate the body part observe what does this urge feels like right now is there a lot of energy in that part do you feel tingling or buzzing sensations is there heaviness or tightness are these sensations solid or are they fluid do you feel soaring energy in that part or is there a sense of numbness usually the sensations come and goes like a wave so right now is the sensation building up or gaining strength or is it at its peak that is the most intense a sensation can be or is the sensation actually beginning to fade away as you notice it so in which stage is it building up at its peak or fading away or fading away as you try to connect with the different stages of a sensation i invite you to read the sensations so if i were to ask you that on a scale of 0 to 10 10 being most intense and 0 being not at all then how intense is this sensation right now now if i were to ask you to give this sensation a shape then what shape comes to your mind is the shape oval,

A pointed triangle or any other shape now that you have given this sensation a shape notice where is the boundary of this sensation where does the sensation ends and another part begins as you tune in to the felt sense of your experience notice are the sensations changing in any manner or is the intensity of sensations still the same on the scale of 0 to 10 now that this part of you feels seen in your presence let's also hear this part out so ask this part what do you need right now the answer that might come up might be anything like a hug,

Reassurance,

A full breath of fresh air,

Sunshine etc now thank this part for sharing all of this with you now ask yourself if you don't want to continue feeling that unpleasant emotion then what emotion do you want to feel instead so the answer that might come up can be relaxation,

Peace,

Happiness or even productive so just listen to whatever comes up now ask yourself if i continue to scroll on social media or binge watch then would i end up feeling that pleasant emotion would my needs get met you can answer these two questions based on whether or not you felt that particular emotion in the past doing the same activity so you can reflect on how do you usually feel after scrolling on social media or after binge watching on web series if your answer to would i end up feeling that particular emotion that i want to feel after doing this activity is yes then yes you are welcome to continue scrolling or binge watching but before you go on to do so reflect on what kind of content you want to consume that will make you feel that particular emotion so if you want to feel peaceful then you are not going to watch something action or drama right so which particular content will make you feel that emotion next also reflect on for how long do you want to consume the content so you can set two alarms one for the time that you decide and one few minutes before the decided time so that your mind gets a warning that the time is going to be up in few minutes next thing you can do is that while you are engaging in these activities of scrolling or binge watching then you can also take a pause in between to check in within yourself and tune into the emotions and sensations that you feel while you are engaging in those activities this way it will become even more clear as to whether this activity is actually fulfilling or not because on this while scrolling on social media i realized that my body was even more tensed and i was feeling highly stimulated and distracted now at last as the alarm that you have set finally rings then you are welcome to again check in with yourself to see whether this activity made you feel the way you wanted to and whether it met your needs or not so in this way even though you indulged in that behavior but still this time it was intentional mindful and compassionate now you might be wondering what if your answer was no that is no engaging in social media engaging in social media or binge watching would not make me feel better or would not meet my needs then reflect what are the other activities that you usually do that make you feel that particular pleasant emotion if you are facing difficulty coming up with specific activity then you can think when was the last time you felt that particular emotion and what were you doing at that time so you can try doing the same activity now reflecting in this way would help you to observe those urges and still not act upon them if it is not beneficial for you at that moment now i know i understand that urges in that moment might feel very strong and you might not feel like repeating this whole meditation and you might even not remember or even not feel like repeating this whole process so if you don't want to go through the whole process then i have a simpler version for you because to be honest i don't go through the whole process myself unless that urge is persistent so the simpler version involves just asking yourself what do you want to feel instead before opening that app or switching on the tv and then ask a follow-up question that whether doing this activity that you were about to do will help you feel the same way or not so this way you will be able to take a decision that aligns with your needs and emotions so you can try both the shorter version or the longer version initially i would recommend the longer version so you can again play this audio whenever you feel the urge and maybe you can skip the you know initial part and just play it from the time when the activity begins then it would not only be easy for you to remember the steps but also to actually cultivate the habit of doing this so that you don't end up wasting those precious hours from your life and later judging yourself for it so when i tried to follow the short version then i realized that there were still some times when my mind convinced me that social media will actually make me feel that way but even at those times as a result of practicing this i was able to be in tune with my feelings after just a few minutes of scrolling on social media so i ended up scrolling for way less time than i would have before so i hope that you liked this meditation and thank you for listening to me if you would like me to make more such content then i'm open to suggestions in the review of this track you can share your experience of this particular activity as well as you can mention the issues that you are struggling with and if the issues comes under my expertise then i would surely make a track on it i would surely make a track on it so this way you can get a personalized track for your particular issue and you are welcome to follow me to get notified whenever that track is published so that's it for today until i meet you next time take care bye

Reviews

Such a relevant and timely topic. Thank you for bringing awareness to this. So needed! ❤️🙏🏾

Such a clever concept Anisha, delivered with wise and gentle guidance. I love that you asked for suggestions and I have some for you. First, when you go silent the listener doesn’t know if the app has stopped so adding ambience could be an idea. Second, I’d be more inclined to have listened to this track if it had a shorter title like “Stop Scrolling”. Third, I think you have a potential series here like, for those who binge watch TV or New, “Stop Watching”. For gamers, “Stop Playing” etc etc