Guilty-scrolling
Even in our passive digital habits, we contribute to the spread of violent and anxiety-inducing content. Guilty without meaning to?
Tuesday Night on Earth. This week: a closer look at scrolling — and why it's time we reclaim some control. Feel free to share this letter.
Doom-scrolling — or "morbid scrolling" — refers to a behavior observed in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic: a frantic consumption of often negative information, leading to a form of generalized anxiety. And often to the viral spread of conspiracy theories.
According to Google Trends, the term doom-scrolling now generates four times more interest than it did at the height of lockdowns in 2020 — a clear sign that the anxiety it embodies is far from subsiding. In one of its most extreme forms, zombie-scrolling occurs when a user simply can’t stop scrolling through Instagram or TikTok, or feels irresistibly drawn to whatever their screen is serving them.
While this topic has been widely discussed from the individual’s perspective — particularly regarding mental health — one angle is often overlooked: when someone doom-scrolls or zombie-scrolls, they’re not only harming themselves, but also others. Even silently, even passively, we become the unwitting links in a chain of circulation for anxiety-inducing, violent, and divisive content. Scrolling becomes a complicit act — and we often don't even realize it.
Watching is not without consequence
In the age of algofluence, every action is interpreted by algorithms. When we’re captivated by a video of MMA fights, police violence, harassment, or theft on TikTok, even if we don’t engage, chances are we’ll be shown more of the same — and so will other users who share similar traits. The mechanism known as concatenation turns our big and small vulnerabilities into raw material to influence others.
Platforms no longer categorize content by human logic (fashion, food, pets). They create their own “sides,” not based on topics but on behavior. They detect chains of actions, emerging patterns, sequences of views, and then test those recommendations on profiles deemed similar. The process is self-correcting: TikTok allows for a margin of error, which it adjusts in real time, constantly refining its models. It’s no longer you who finds content — content finds you, because someone like you watched it first.
Watching feeds the algorithm.
Scrolling shapes the fabric of the digital social bond — and its first currency is content.
Addicted to discomfort and cringe
In a grand display of Sartrean bad faith, we tell ourselves we’re powerless — yet we continue doing exactly what fuels the problem. Behind our screens, these small, shameful gestures seem light and anecdotal. But they happen far too often to be entirely innocent.
The videos we watch “just out of curiosity” — public fights, media gaffes, humiliating comments — are at the heart of the imbalance. They are the stuff of guilty-scrolling.
Guilty-scrolling, or coupable-scrolling, is the uneasy awareness of an action too banal to be a crime, but too frequent to be neutral.
It’s no longer just a personal spiral of anxiety. It’s the transmission chain of a collective unconscious fed by fear, violence, and performative outrage.
Scrolling with intention
So how do we reclaim our agency — and shed the guilt? Perhaps by playing the algorithm at its own game. These systems now rely primarily on our implicit behaviors — the subtle, intimate ones that aren’t visible to others. A screenshot, a watched Story, a TikTok video played to the end — these are the signals machines track, without asking for our consent.
In the face of this silent trade-off of our inner selves, we can reclaim some degree of agency. We can become more intentional with our usage. Mark a video as violating community guidelines. Say “not interested.” Avoid clicking on recommended videos. Share content with more nuance and substance with your circle. Even reach out to regulatory bodies.
Resist the pull of the automatic feed. Choose, now and then, what you watch.
In short, the goal isn’t to make scrolling shameful — but to make it conscious.
Reclaiming a little control already breaks the algorithmic spell.
It turns our attention from a resource harvested without our consent into a tool for expression — a vote, a choice, a stance.
The Stat of the week: 118,160
In France, the number of requests made by authorities to websites for the removal of child pornography or terrorist content rose from 82,754 to 118,160 in 2023 — a 43% increase year-on-year.
Amazing links
WikiAsteroids: Bringing Wikipedia to Life in an Arcade Cabinet (Wikimedia)
journal like everyone's watching (Culture Vulture)
Have a great week! This newsletter is written with love, passion, and (French) coffee.
Feel free to share this newsletter, like, comment, or keep sending me emails: these notifications are a joy.
My book “Alive In Social Media” is available on Amazon.