Key points:
Time is our most valuable resource, yet it is often wasted on trivial distractions.
Mindless scrolling can lead to guilt and lower emotional well-being over time.
Living purposefully requires prioritizing meaningful activities over fleeting pleasures.
The philosopher Seneca (c. 4 BCE – 65 CE) pointed out that time is our most valuable yet most wasted resource. It is common for people to squander time on trivial and unimportant things. We must guard our time carefully in order to lead a meaningful life and to experience fulfilment and purpose.
In his essay On the Shortness of Life, Seneca writes:
It is not that we have a brief length of time to live, but that we squander a great deal of that time. Life is sufficiently long, and has been granted with enough generosity for us to accomplish the greatest things, provided that in its entirety it is well invested; but when it is dissipated in extravagance and carelessness, when it is spent on no good purpose, then, compelled at last by the final necessity, we realize it has passed away without our noticing its passing. So it stands: we do not receive a life that is short, but rather we make it so; we are not beggars in it, but spendthrifts.
In our digital age, it’s easy to waste time.
The range of distractions we face makes it difficult to prioritize the meaningful activities which add to our sense of purpose in life.
One of the biggest ways we waste our time these days is through the act of scrolling. Many of the interfaces we use on social media and while surfing the internet are designed to allow for endless scrolling.
Complex algorithms keep us hooked, satisfying our immediate desires. People find themselves scrolling mindlessly for hours on end.
A study in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication explored the effects of mindless scrolling. The researchers confirmed what we likely would have guessed: people often experience feelings of guilt after mindlessly scrolling.
The study found, further, that this guilt leads to decreases in scrollers’ daily emotional well-being over time. Those with lower self-control were especially prone to guilt when they engage in mindless scrolling.
The challenge with digital technology is that it makes it exceedingly easy for us to lose time.
A common refrain is that tech companies are especially blameworthy for pushing addictive technology on us, thereby creating and sustaining this situation.
There is certainly some truth in this. These companies naturally aim to maximize profits; and in order to do so, users of the technology need to expend large amounts of time engaging with it.
But if we as individuals wish to live with greater purpose with respect to our time, we cannot just blame these companies. We need to engage with ourselves and our lives philosophically.
That is a task that is not unique to the digital age. It has been a deeply human task since Seneca wrote, and long before that, too. While difficult to do, stopping scrolling is partly a matter of enacting a shift in perspective, altering the priorities we set for ourselves in using our time.
Seneca's point remains as true today as it was when he wrote: it is not that we receive a life that is short; instead, we make it so insofar as we aren’t engaging philosophically with our lives.
Until next week,
Bradley