I Need to Stop Scrolling - By Charlie Warzel - Galaxy Brain⁠↗

At the end of that five minute sequence, I ended up with no valuable additional information. In this instance, Twitter played the role of an ephemeral anxiety delivery device. Is that really how I want to spend my time online? Given how much I use social feeds to consume news, I don’t even know if that’s a rhetorical question. For the last two years I’ve thought a lot about whether I am lightly addicted to information that gives me a low grade level of worry.

we often reach for information when what we actually need is each other — and more scarce resources like “courage, patience, practical wisdom, and, perhaps most importantly, friendship.” When we’re forced to operate or plan in an unknown environment, it’s far easier to do so if we are not alone. “If I must bear the consequences of my choices alone, if there is no one whose counsel I trust,” he writes, “then it becomes especially tempting to seek both perfect knowledge and certainty before acting, and find myself paralyzed in their absence. It is easy to see how we might take refuge in the idea that we lack sufficient information. The claim that I’m holding out for more information can neatly mask my lack of courage to do what I know needs to be done.”