Doom Scrolling And Touching Grass

I have recently learned a new term, and that term is Bi-phasic Sleeping. It is meant to describe the phenomena of going to sleep for several hours, waking in the middle of the night, staying up for several more, and returning back to sleep for another few hours or so. I am glad I learned this because it makes me feel less alone. Or that this strange phenomenon is at least as common enough to have a name. Yes, it often helps us to know that we are not alone in our dilemmas, whether they are big or small, physical or mental, moral or simply sleep-related. 

There is perhaps no time when the issue of connectivity and aloneness is more on the tongue of humanity than it is now. Because we are surely too connected and have little knowledge of any repairable recourse, this abundance of connectivity also makes us feel more alone. 

(And in another case of my biphasic sleeping schedule, I woke up, flipped on the computer, and saw that, potentially, Donald Trump has averted yet again another assassination attempt. Strangely enough, I felt a little rewarded. Not that I would be happy if a presidential candidate was assassinated––that isn’t what I mean at all. I mean on the level of a dopamine rush. After all, I turned on my computer to check YouTube, to see, in the middle of the night, if I had missed anything. And there it was––the shocking news of the day, of the hour, of the minute.)

And so, comes to mind the notion of doom scrolling. When it comes to our social media feeds, we search for the shocking, the tragic, and any sign of a looming apocalypse. If only Armageddon could have its own streaming feed, we may never leave our screens or phones. It seems, on a global level, we are fairly committed to scrolling ourselves right into hell. I am guilty of it myself. 

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Clearly, humans yearn to be connected. We have mechanisms by which we forge connection and those mechanisms can roughly be described as the “arts”. Theatre, film, poetry, food, dancing, music, etc. are all universal to humans as the art of storytelling can be found in all of them. We may consider that a clue as to the direction of the past and the direction we are headed. Compared to these acts, scrolling the internet for content, and even finding some connection, feels like a chore that will come up short of our expectations, if the arts of the past are of any quality worth pursuing. No doubt, there is no going back, the internet and its many uses will likely increase. Social media sites will come and go, but we all know it isn’t going anywhere, not really. 

Like many, I have turned away from social media. I do count Substack as social media, and for now, seems its most healthy iteration. But in the past years, my personal Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have all been deleted. I keep Substack for reading and publishing and YouTube for politics and silly things. Of course, every so often I catch myself doom-scrolling. 

In this frenzy of the online world, of memes and shorts, of humor and plagues, of war footage and concert footage, politics reigns. In this world, politics touches all things and all things must, eventually, touch politics. Let us focus now on the American presidential election, for as always, it is the most pressing. Whenever there is something meaningful to be presented to the American public, we hardly have time to digest what it is. If the news from this morning that I mentioned earlier is correct in its assumptions, then we will have had now three attempts on Donald Trump’s life. I won’t be the only one to mention that we hardly understand the first attempt and its implications or inspiration. 

The news moves at lightning speed––and when it does not, there is plenty of commentary, data, talking points, statistics and rumors to be chewed over. As we further enter into the final approach of this presidential election, the statistics will of course become more centered on the key swing states of America. We will hear endless mastication on Pennsylvania, but if not, Michigan, but then again Arizona, on and on and on. Until finally, hopefully, we can get the whole thing over with. All the assassination attempts, all of the talk of “joy” and “just plain weird” will pass. All of the grown men seeking the carnal knowledge of the couch, of immigrants eating cats and dogs, all of the analysis will have been combed over and won’t matter anymore, for a winner, and therefore a loser has been declared. All the buzzwords will go the way of the Barbie summer, or Oppenheimer, whatever that hoopla was supposed to mean sometime a while back.

In Millennial phrasing, there exists a term, a kind of maxim/advice/insult for the terminally online. Those folks who appear to be stricken, their brains warped by an infinite feed. “Touch grass”, as they say, is clearly a plea for one to go outside, get some sunshine, and gain some perspective. As much lingo is, the term is pure cringe, but it is not wrong in its thinking.

And as relevant as it is to terminally inside, terminally online crowd, I believe it is just as useful to the age of politics-as-sport, politics-as-everything. Because we cannot live our lives in a constant state of bickering, a constant state of analysis, a constant state of being so aware of our political better lives, that we become disillusioned about our very own. I cannot speak for everyone, but I never resigned to having anyone’s name resembling Kamala Harris or Donald Trump so often shoved down my throat that I can hardly close my eyes or brain without one of them popping up. Clearly, we are in the thick of a very “monumental” election cycle, whatever that means, and we expect some uptick in chatter. We expect ads, we expect speeches, and we expect interviews. But I can’t help but think this election cycle is a bit more than that. It seems overwhelming, it feels unhealthy. I want to touch grass––I wish I never had to hear Kamala or Trump’s name ever again. 

Of course, this is not an option. But for now, and in the future, I for one will be disconnecting from the all-consuming toxicity of the infinite scroll, the doom scroll, and our America’s politics. I think there is much about life that involves finding yourself, and inventing yourself. So many of us are giving up ourselves, losing ourselves, and doing so without a fight. It is only my hope that once a President assumes their new role as Commander in Chief in the White House, people can take a momentary pause, let the President and their team get to work, and, maybe then, go on about their lives. 

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.