Day 59- What Scrolling Social Media Says About the Nature of the Mind
Day 59- What Scrolling Social Media Says About the Nature of the Mind
You're sitting there on Instagram, scrolling through your feed. You know you shouldn't be doing it, but at this point you've been in lockdown for what seems like years and, really, what else is there to do?!?
You know what I'm talking about when you experience what seems like a continuous stream of highs and lows, seemingly unrelated to the content you're viewing. Why does it seem like sometimes when you are viewing things you actually like, you still go into a "down?" Why do you sometimes get a rush when you are looking at disturbing content, and then feel guilty about it later? Why can't you seem to just look at your content without the endless rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows?
The thing about the mind is that it is actually preprogrammed. When you are sitting looking at your feed, you are suppressing whatever normal emotions and feelings you'd experience throughout your day, searching for just a moment of calm in this crazy world. But have you noticed you can't just turn your mind off?
The programs of the mind continue operating in the background as you lounge on the couch with your phone. You open your feed and the image of a kitten resonates with a positive memory of kittens, and your mind's program is activated.
You keep scrolling.
While you have meticulously curated your feed at this point to present an unbroken stream of almost entirely positive, apparently uplifting images, including glamour shots of your friends doing cool stuff, you know it's coming: the inevitable valley after the peak of euphoria.
Why is it so hard to predict what will trigger this sudden relapse into negative feelings? Clearly, a well-taken picture of your stoked friend doing something envious should elicit positive feelings. Although, sometimes it's just the odd dark or realistic image that has snuck into your scrolling which triggers it, and that make's more sense. But it doesn't seem to really matter which image it is, the oscillation between high and low seems inevitable.
So, what's going on here?
As mentioned earlier, the nature and structure of your mind is preprogrammed and those programs are based in polarity. In order to continuously generate energy (the mind, like a computer, requires energy to keep operating it's programs), the mind needs to swing back and forth between positive and negative. This program operates regardless of what is going on in your environment
What's more, it can utilize positive or negative images/experiences to trigger the next stage of the program- it doesn't matter if you are already in a positive or negative experience.
For more information on how the mind operates and how to break out of the cycle of constantly cycling between positive and negative, positive and negative, investigate Desteni.