Decentering the Scroll
Attention, resistance, and remembering who we are
Full transparency: I’m sharing this post two weeks later than I initially intended. This was truly a labor of love. My initial draft had enough content for three separate posts. What I procrastinated on was revision. But since you’re reading this now, that means I got through it. Yay! This is self-trust in action y’all. Now, let’s get into it.
It’s no surprise that my initial draft with this post was all over the place. These days, I feel like I’m spreading my attention between so many things. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful to be in a position right now where I have the time to pursue so many of my interests: starting a business, finding a job, writing, learning, upskilling. Plus I recently added the sidequest of substitute teaching. It’s a great way to give back while earning part-time income, and it still gives me a lot of flexibility with my time. It feels perfect for me during this transition period. But…it’s also a lot. Multiple things can be true. However, this is not a complaint. I’m in the season of embracing being multipassionate.
What I am learning, though, is that being able to do this sustainably requires some planning and intention. Which is why I’ve become much more intentional about how I use my time. I actually started in my last semester before earning my degree. I had to get real with myself – was there not enough time for me to do the reading, or was I not allocating the time I had well? It turned out that it was the latter. When I started being more mindful about the way I used my time, I started to see opportunities to expand it.
This is what led me to start loosening the grip my phone has over my attention. Smart phones, the internet, and social media demand our attention constantly. They’re designed that way on purpose. I learned this a long time ago, surprisingly from a former colleague who was the first person I knew in real life who gave up social media. So it’s no wonder that last year, when I (ironically) saw a post on Threads about a book called Your Attention is Sacred (Except on Social Media) written by Amelia Hruby, I was intrigued. Because I knew I was still spending entirely too much time scrolling, even though I have so many other goals I wanted to give that time to.
Note: One thing I highly encourage in these days of illiteracy and media illiteracy, especially, is to be discerning with the content you choose to consume. I was not familiar with Amelia Hruby’s work prior to this, but her PhD credential is listed on the cover of the book. The about section on the back cover states that she is “a feminist writer and podcaster with a PhD in philosophy”. Now, for me and this subject, this was enough to make me feel comfortable going forward with reading the book. Though that isn’t much information, it tells me enough to know that the information is likely to be reasonably credible, and that the author’s biases are likely aligned with my own. Keeping this in mind helps me be cognizant of which critical lens to use to evaluate the arguments in the book, and determine what, if anything, is worth remembering. I recommend figuring out your own evaluation criteria and taking this approach for any and all content you consume. ANYBODY can write a book, publish an article, write a blog…we need to make sure we’re paying attention to the sources of our information, especially information that contributes to shaping our beliefs about the world and the people around us.
Essentially, the main thesis of the book is this:
“The two most prominent ways we talk about our experiences online – the attention economy and the algorithm – trap us in a specific experience of the internet and force us to become striving producers or passive consumers.”
So basically, we tend to talk about our online experience in terms of our attention as a currency that we treat as a limited (scarce) resource, and the algorithm, also known as the super secret computer code each platform develops that determines what content we see on our feeds. And when we don’t understand how these two things operate in tandem, we are trapped in a lose-lose cycle of producing and consuming, which costs us that which we should consider sacred: a life filled with more autonomy and meaning. The author hopes that the book will encourage people to either leave social media entirely or choose to be a lot more intentional about how they engage with it. And I’ve gotta tell you…I’m convinced.
There’s this quote I used to see a lot, that originated from the movie/documentary The Social Dilemma, but it says something to the effect of social media being “free” because we (consumers) are the product. The tech and consumer goods companies collect our data, track our activities and patterns, and use that information to sell us more things. Endless consumerism in the name of capitalism. It’s ripping apart the moral fabric of our society and it’s causing irreparable harm to the planet. But I’ll say more on that in a later post.
Times like now are when the truth is so glaringly obvious. In these moments of social unrest, like what we’ve been seeing in Minnesota, and all over the country, following the killings of American citizens by ICE agents, the lies are revealed. Not only were they American citizens by the way, but some were WHITE PEOPLE. I saw many white people on the internet who were not very happy about this. But I’ve gotta be honest. The doom and gloom takes are getting a little old, especially considering the fact that the energy is not the same for ALL victims. Many people, mainly white people from what I’ve seen, are still missing one fundamental fact: this has ALWAYS been America.
In a recent talk, Nikole Hannah-Jones, esteemed journalist and the creator of the 1619 Project, articulated what Black activists and organizers have been trying to get across since…they brought us here, pretty much. But especially in the last few election cycles that put us in the current trajectory we’re on with 45/47.
Trust a Black woman to always tell it like it is. I truly do feel for the people who are only now realizing that they’ve been lied to. Maybe that’s you. It’s hard to reckon with this kind of information, this kind of reframe of everything you thought you knew. It can shatter a person’s self-image and their understanding of their identity. Reconstruction is difficult and painful. Ask me how I know. And yet, there’s a voice deep down telling me we’ve been here before. Perhaps many voices, echoing off each other, yet still blending into one. The voices of my ancestors and of all the Black American lives taken by police officers. Policing is another form of state-sanctioned violence, by the way. Where were these people in 2016? In 1992? In 1865? We’ve been here before. What does it look like to meet the moment? What does it mean to resist? How did our ancestors make it through? Will it ever change?
I now believe that reducing our time on social media can be one of many forms of resistance. Times like now make me want to spend less and less time on social media anyway. Not because I want to turn away from witnessing the horrors of our reality, but because I can’t center my existence around it. And that’s what social media asks of us – to center our existence around it. Social media prioritizes divisive, disheartening content. And organizers and activists constantly report that the algorithms suppress the voices of those trying to do good. Those trying to spread awareness for ways people can take action and contribute to solutions. Chaos is profitable. It makes sense.
Remember when social media was mostly fun instead of doom? When phones were primarily tools for communication and connection? Have you ever been out to eat with a group of people, looked up, and realized the table was silent because everyone was on their phones? I have, and I was bothered by it. What does it mean to share an experience if we’re not experiencing it collectively? We’ve let tools meant for connection become barriers instead.
And rather than being a tool we can use for organizing, mobilization, and the sharing of reliable information, social media has become a cesspool filled with disinformation, misinformation (there is, indeed, a distinction), ignorant and flagrant “unpopular” takes, uninformed and harmful opinions…racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, hatred. It all feeds the tech industry’s bottom line. At the expense of our collective wellbeing. A cost I now recognize as too high.
This is another form of my resistance, this blog. Reading books and educating myself is another. Educating others is something I also hope to do more of. Writing is my medium, although I also enjoy other forms of artistic expression. Art – creation – is necessary. it’s not the only thing that’s important, but it is indeed important. Writers must tell the stories that matter. We must tell the truth. It is my goal to do so with care and compassion, but also authenticity and honesty. I tell my truth through the lens of an educated Black American millennial woman because our voices are not spotlighted. They actively try to erase our voices. They can ban our books, push us out of mainstream media, do what they’ve always done. We will not be silenced.
At the time of this post’s publication, we will be in the second half of February – Black History Month in the United States. What a month it has already been. There have been a few bright moments of joy and celebration – the wins at the Grammys, Bad Bunny’s SuperBowl Halftime performance. But there’s also been the release of more Epstein files, more ICE chaos, more disappointment from our elected officials, more division. The question I keep hearing from people is “What can we do?” I don’t have a simple answer. We need strategy, we need community, we need organizing, we need leaders. But before we get there, people need to understand WHY and HOW we got here in the first place. And that starts with understanding that Black history IS AMERICAN HISTORY.
There is no time like the present. Read books by Black scholars, watch videos of Black radical thinkers throughout history on YouTube. Watch documentaries on PBS (the passport gives you access to all their content for $60 annually), or through Kanopy (a video site that can be accessed through local or university library memberships). Use your local public library! When you are on social media, follow Black thinkers, scholars, writers, artists, organizers, and activists. Do what you can to resist the lie of white supremacy capitalism. If you haven’t yet, you can start small. Just start.
I know this post was a little heavy. I know times are heavy, and it doesn’t seem like there’s an end in sight. I’m not an accelerationist; I don’t believe economic collapse is inevitable. And even if it does end up happening, we’re not ready or equipped to build something better. But we can get there. We have to believe we can, we have to dream of it. We have to let that dream guide us, as those who came before us did. We must ground ourselves in truth and most importantly, love. We must do the hard things. But we don’t have to do them alone. We are all co-creators of the future. Our actions today shape what that future will look like. The good and bad news is that we all play a role – and we all get to choose.
What would it look like to treat your attention as an act of resistance?
Love and light always,
Domi
P.S. This essay is part one of the DTM Decentering Series - reflections on what happens when we stop centering systems that were never built for us.
Here are some of my favorite thinkers and educators to follow on social media: @EbonyJanice (dreaming as technology, ancestors as guides, black woman sovereignty), @FeministaJones (Afrocentricity, Black radicalism, history), @AustinChanning (Black womanhood, truth telling with compassion), @iamshaeo (AI and society), @GarrisonH (history and politics)