BoSacks Speaks Out: Addicted to the Scroll, A Nation of Dopamine Drips and Bent Necks

Let’s not mince words or get lost in the semantic fog of "user experience." The science is in, and the message is clear: staring into glowing rectangles all day is frying our focus, warping our brains, wrecking our posture, and rewiring the fabric of human attention, all by design.

We’re not glancing at screens. We’re living in them. We funnel our lives through glowing portals, tap by tap, swipe by swipe, in a daze of engineered compulsion. Our tools have become our tethers.

We Knew This Was Coming

You think this is accidental? You think it’s just how things evolved? Come on. It’s not evolution, it’s a business model. This is precision-built behavioral engineering, running on algorithms so refined they make Pavlov look like an amateur.

A 2024 Pew study shows 95% of U.S. teens have access to a smartphone, and nearly half admit they’re online almost constantly. That’s not a casual relationship, that’s a full-blown dependency. DataReportal’s “Digital 2024” report puts the average American’s screen time north of 7 hours per day. That's not a tool, we’re talking about a full-time job of being distracted.

Dopamine by Design

Let’s talk brain chemistry. Each ping, each red badge, each "like" is a carefully timed microdose of dopamine. It’s a hit. A fix. You’re not surfing the web, you’re riding a neurological rollercoaster engineered by PhDs who used to work in Vegas.

Dr. Anna Lembke of Stanford wasn’t being metaphorical when she called the smartphone “the modern hypodermic needle.” B.F. Skinner would be proud: variable rewards, intermittent reinforcement, it's all there. Just replace the lab rat with a teenager, and the food pellet with an Instagram notification.

Infinite Scroll = Infinite Trap

This isn’t about convenience; it’s about control. Infinite scroll is a casino lever for the thumb. Facebook’s own leaked research showed they know exactly what they’re doing, tuning notifications to hijack teen brains for engagement. Not connection. Not joy. Engagement.

A 2019 University of Hamburg study found people spent 41% more time on apps that employed infinite scroll. Why? Because they’re not apps. They’re habit loops in disguise. We’re not "using" them, they're using us.

Attention Span Now Sold by the Second

Remember when we could read a novel without checking our phones? Neither do I. Gloria Mark, a professor at UC Irvine, tracked attention span shifts over two decades. In 2004, we stayed on a single task for about 2.5 minutes. In 2023? Forty-seven seconds. That’s shorter than most TikToks, and exponentially shorter than the depth required to think critically.

We’ve gone from Hemingway to highlight reels. From long-form journalism to whatever fits on a screen before the next swipe.

Posture? What Posture?

We are literally collapsing. Our bodies are starting to reflect our digital addictions, neck craned, shoulders slouched, spine compressed. A study in the Journal of Physical Therapy Science shows chronic neck pain among college students has jumped 67% since 2010, directly correlating with phone use. We used to walk upright. Now we look like we’re praying to the sidewalk.

The Unregulated Mind Machine

We slap warning labels on cigarettes. We regulate trans fats. We count every calorie and gram of sugar. But there’s no warning label for TikTok. No Surgeon General’s message before you open Instagram.

Where’s the public outcry for behavioral manipulation at scale? Where’s the regulation for what’s being slipped into our attention streams every waking hour?

Big Tech isn’t just feeding us content. It’s refining us like a resource, slicing up our attention, selling it to advertisers, and packaging our impulses into neatly targeted micro-markets. U.S. digital ad revenue hit $286 billion in 2023. That’s not a byproduct. That’s the whole damn business model.

Reclaiming the Human Signal

And let me be clear: I’m not anti-tech. I’ve used it, championed it, and helped shape the way it intersects with publishing. But there’s a world of difference between using a tool and being used by it.

So here’s my proposal:

Stop calling it “content.”

Start calling it what it is, mindware.

And like software, it needs version control. Like hardware, it needs off switches.

Most of all, it needs boundaries.

Unplug on purpose. Scroll with suspicion. Recognize that not everything with a pastel icon and a ping is there for your benefit.

This isn’t nostalgia for a better time, it’s a call to arms for better habits. It’s not about going back. It’s about going forward with intention, before the last flicker of un-monetized thought disappears into a feed designed by someone you've never met for reasons you'll never understand.

Because if we don’t start choosing how we interact with our machines, on our terms, not theirs, the machines, and more importantly, their architects, will continue choosing for us. Pixel by pixel. Swipe by swipe. Decision by decision.

And make no mistake: they already have.

Now, with all that said, and with full recognition of the irony, I’ve probably just wasted a few hours writing and researching this piece. Why? Because nothing’s likely to change. The system is too slick. The dopamine too sweet. The slot machine too convenient. We’ve built ourselves a glowing, portable, always-on amusement park… with no exits and no fire code.

We are not living in the future. We are living in a technologic hellhole, a behavioral feedback loop so finely tuned, so relentlessly optimized, that even knowing it changes nothing.

Control? Illusion.

Solution? Elusive.

Hope? Sure, but she’s on life support, and her battery's at 3%.

Still, I write. Still, I warn. Because that is what I have done for over 30 years.

And who knows? Maybe one of you will read this, pause, and put the damn phone down for five minutes.

That’d be a start.