Instagram analysis continues.

I am here to report a major step forward in my understanding of what is going on.

Knowledge is power as they say and I hope this insight will help me wield it.

The other morning as I was scrolling through Instagram at the breakfast table, something clicked. When I finished my tea, I got out a notebook and slowing down my scrolling to a crawl, painstakingly wrote down what I was looking at on each page. This is an honest, verbatim account. I warn you, it's long, but it illustrates the problem in an astonishing way.

Here's what the algorithm tossed at me that morning :

Robin Williams doing an improv in a Scottish accent about the imaginary beginnings of the game of golf.

Meme about the voices in our heads.

Video of someone crocheting a tiny granny square blanket from sewing thread.

Quote from a Japanese psychologist.

A guy talking about pretending that people are funnier than they really are.

Little girl with an adorable Indian accent talking about bumblebees.

Meme about Mormon missionaries.

Comparison of colors and style in Disney cartoons over the years.

Joke about the Paint program in Windows.

Man doing a video about different kinds of nuts.

Clip of the TV show Welcome back Kotter.

Man commenting on the election of the New York mayor.

Woman doing a comedy video about computer videos.

Instructions on how to calm your nervous system using the letter 'R'.

Amusing video of a woman trying to follow a confusing knitting pattern.

Someone posting pictures of a certain view in their yard over the course of a year.

A meme about good character traits.

Hand drawn cartoon about getting a terrible massage.

Weird unrelated video image accompanied by reasons why some people survive cancer.

Another video about cancer. (The FIRST repeat of a topic!!!)

A clip from Blackadder TV show about writing a dictionary.

A woman giving reasons why she knows her brain has completely matured now that she has turned 25.

Photos of examples of Brutalist architecture.

***

My dear friends. This is a recipe for brain rot. It also reminds me of some horror films where they are keeping some poor soul's eyes open with toothpicks making them watch flashing images on a screen to drive him out of his mind.

Only thing is... I AM VOLUNTARILY DOING THIS TO MYSELF!

I tell you. This was SUCH a graphic (literally) revelation of what I have been doing, that I have limited my exposure to about 15 minutes a day since then.

I needed to look at Instagram consciously, slowly, instead of passively, and the insidious method of chaos revealed itself.

It's not that any of these things on the list was bad. Some were actually funny or positive. It's the random, chaotic, way they come at me that is toxic, absolutely toxic to the healthy functioning of the human mind.

So, if you are at all struggling with 'doomscrolling', maybe this will help you too.

And it's pretty funny that this is a word that everyone uses to describe phone surfing because we know it's bad.

The Scroll of Doom.

Who would want to read THAT?

Turns out quite a lot of us.

🙄