Social Media Is Entertaining Us Out of Thinking

We don’t talk enough about what we’re losing.

Critical thinking. Deep focus. The ability to sit with a question. The quiet space where daydreams form and ideas begin to take shape. These aren’t outdated habits, they’re just harder and harder to access in a world built around speed, stimulation, and noise.

This isn’t going to be a post about how social media is destroying our minds... I’ve been in this industry for 15 years. Social media built my business, my brand, my income. I’m not here to bite the hand that fed me — I’m here to name a shift I can’t ignore.

Because something has changed. Not overnight, and not always visibly. But enough that I’m starting to feel it in the way I think. In the way my clients create. In the way we all reach for something to fill the smallest pause.

And I think we need to talk about it.

Scrolling is quietly reshaping how we think

We all feel it — that restless, scattered state of mind after just a few minutes online. But the numbers confirm it, too.

A study from Microsoft Canada in 2015 found that the average human attention span had dropped to just eight seconds — shorter than that of a goldfish. It made headlines at the time, and while the comparison is amusing, the real issue runs deeper than duration. It’s about fragmentation.

Short-form content — especially the kind built for infinite scroll — doesn’t just reduce our attention span. It retrains our brain. It teaches us to expect instant payoff: constant novelty, instant stimulation, dopamine on demand. There’s no time to build tension, no patience for subtlety, no reason to wait. The next thing is always a swipe away.

A 2022 research paper found that frequent consumption of short-form content is linked to a decline in what psychologists call cognitive persistence — our ability to stay with a complex thought, hold nuance, and resist the urge to disengage. In simple terms, we’re becoming less capable of staying with an idea long enough for it to change us.

You’ve felt it. You watch a 30-second video that genuinely moves you. It’s thoughtful. Well-crafted. Maybe even profound. But before that emotion settles, the algorithm serves another clip. And another. A few minutes later, you’ve watched twelve more, and can’t recall the one that mattered.

The problem isn’t that people don’t want to think. It’s that they’re no longer given the conditions in which thinking can take root: silence, stillness, boredom, repetition, time.

Because here’s the deeper truth: critical thinking isn’t triggered by information alone. It’s triggered by reflection. And reflection can’t survive in an environment optimized for speed, novelty, and reaction.

So while platforms keep innovating to hold our attention, we’re slowly losing something that’s harder to measure but far more important: depth.

When one format dominates, creativity suffers

There’s nothing wrong with short content. Cleverness, clarity, surprise — they can all shine in a 15-second video or a single sentence. In fact, some of the most creative work today lives inside these constraints. But that’s not the problem.

The problem is that short-form didn’t just arrive, it became the norm. It pushed out everything else. It became the only format rewarded by algorithms, the only shape content is expected to take, the only kind that feels “worth it” to produce.

And when a format optimized for virality becomes the dominant model, something subtle but dangerous begins to erode: creative range.

We don’t just consume differently — we begin to create differently. Writers cut their insights short to land a punchline. Educators flatten nuance to make an idea go viral. Artists simplify their work to meet the scroll-speed of the feed. Not necessarily because they want to, but because they know what performs.

And over time, that performance pressure seeps into every decision. We start playing it safe. We stay within what we already know will work. We avoid exploring the edges of our own ideas, unless those edges are easily shareable.

Because if a piece of content doesn’t grab attention in the first three seconds, it doesn’t just disappear from the feed. It disappears from our willingness to even try again.

So the real question isn’t whether short-form content is inherently valuable. It is.

The better question is:
What happens to creativity when the only work we share is what survives the scroll?

Information ≠ understanding

One of the most dangerous myths of the digital age is that the more content we consume, the more informed we become. As if volume alone could lead to wisdom. As if access equals insight.

But scrolling through a dozen takes on a topic doesn’t teach us how to think — it teaches us how to react. It gives us the feeling of engagement, while skipping the steps that make it meaningful.

We collect fragments. We skim headlines. We nod in agreement, or shake our heads in judgment. But rarely do we stay long enough to sit with a contradiction, to follow a thought to its conclusion, or to ask what it would take to truly change our mind.

It's like trying to understand the world through a shuffled deck of quote cards. Some are sharp. Some are inspiring. But without depth, without tension, without context, they don’t add up to anything lasting.

And so the question becomes a little more uncomfortable:
How many of us, honestly, can stay with a complex idea — not just have an opinion about it, but really live inside the complexity, the uncertainty, the slow unfolding of it?

We’ve been conditioned to respond, not reflect. The cost of this immediacy-first culture runs deeper than we think. It doesn’t just shape our scrolling habits. It seeps into how we relate to one another, how we make decisions, how we teach, lead, vote, and build.
And eventually, it shapes how we see ourselves.

Long-form isn’t dead — it’s just unfashionable. For now.

Even platforms that were once built for depth are now flirting with distraction.

LinkedIn prioritizes visual content and bite-sized updates. Substack experiments with Notes, video integration, and trending lists, all designed to increase engagement —which too often just means more noise.

But here’s the irony: people didn’t flock to these platforms to be entertained. They came for something else entirely — clarity, slowness, presence. A different kind of mental space.

Maybe we’ve already hit the ceiling of the short-form era. Maybe the pendulum is starting to swing back, quietly but steadily.

I see more and more people who are overstimulated but undernourished, hungry not for more content, but for content that actually lands. Not for ten tips or six hacks, but for something that makes them stop scrolling, close their other tabs, and think.

Long-form content — whether it’s a newsletter, a podcast, or an in-depth article — doesn’t ask for constant clicks. It asks for attention.

It’s not better because it’s longer. It’s better because it assumes the reader is capable of more than reacting. It gives room for context, nuance, complexity — the things we’ve been told are boring, but are actually the foundation of meaning.

So maybe the question isn’t how we can adapt to the algorithm. Maybe the real question is whether we want to.

Do we really want to build businesses and brands and creative lives that only exist at the speed of dopamine? Or could we choose something else — a rhythm that values substance over trend, and connection over reach?

Maybe we don’t need to optimize. Maybe we need to resist. Not as a nostalgic act, but as a deliberate one, as a form of leadership. A thoughtful counterculture doesn’t need to be loud. But it does need to be intentional.

These aren’t easy questions. And I’m not pretending to have final answers.
But I do think they’re worth asking, especially now.

Not just for the people who’ve already written Substack essays about quitting Instagram (only to quietly drift back a few weeks later)… Not just for the ones who’ve unplugged, gone analog, or built their cabin-in-the-woods version of online life.

Mostly, I think these questions matter for those of us still in it.
For those of us using these platforms.
Creating on them.
Building businesses, audiences, and livelihoods through them.
For those of us shaping the space and being shaped by it in return.

Because the goal was never to reject the tools.
It’s to use them on purpose.

And maybe — just maybe — to leave a little more space for thought.

Warmly,
Andi

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P.S. One of the most powerful things we can do as content creators is learn to tell our own stories with clarity, consistency, and a personal edge. But it’s not always easy to see those stories clearly. That’s why I created a FREE Notion tool called the StoryBank Builder — to help you start collecting and shaping your stories with simple prompts, so your content becomes more intentional, memorable, and yours.
Grab it here.