The deep tissue massage ended and I was escorted to the spa’s Brine Room. If it wasn’t for the gift card, I wouldn’t have even been there. But there I was, sitting in a bath robe on an Adirondack chair, smelling like lavender oil.
I enjoyed the microscopic salt particles floating in the air, along with ambient drone music and the gentle light therapy. This halotherapy session was the grand finale, a place to get some peace with both body and mind.
Some in the room sipped on complimentary champagne or water, nibbling on cheese and fruit. It was a soothing end to the unknotting of bodies before they braced the harsh sunlight in the parking lot.
A guy sat next to me and whipped out his phone. Varying lights emitted from his phone as his thumb swiped on the glass. His wife sat next to him and did the same thing. The phone glow was distracting, but I closed my eyes and tried to relax, not wanting to snoop.
The locker rooms had signs reminding all to detach, to leave your phone locked up and silenced. I figured these people were dedicated employees, maybe entrepreneurs, and needed to check their emails. I’ve been there, and understood that sometimes it’s hard to mentally check out. I thought further: Maybe they had a family emergency and were trying get updates? Or maybe they were wealthy and this was just a typical Friday for them, the whole experience so dull and mundane that they needed to digitally escape. Maybe the Brine Room to them was the drab equivalent to me standing at the Glenside train station, waiting for the SEPTA regional train.
Chuckles ensued and I glanced over. The familiar thumbing ensued, both of them looking at their Instagram feeds, pausing at certain moments. The user interface and fixed icons at the bottom were clear to me. (But, why couldn’t they have been using Dark Mode?)
And that’s what I realized how it’s such an amazing, opportunistic time to be a social content creator. You’re tossing your vertical video content in the roulette wheel of potential viewers on Instagram and TikTok. You’re feeding the dopamine cravings of many throughout the day, whether it’s doomscrolling or joyscrolling—many are diving into a deep scroll hole and getting blissed out and blacking out on “For You” content.
As a content creator, you’re vying for everyone’s attention, hoping you’ve checked all the boxes for the ever-morphing algorithm that nobody fully understands. Everyone has a chance to cook up that viral video, following alleged recipes that make it tight like Walter White’s “blue” stuff.
Public social scrolling in supermarket lines is commonplace, but I’ve also seen it happening at funeral homes and at the theater during the first scene of an IMAX movie. Sure, I know people like to watch streaming shows at home and scroll on the couch arm, but a theater?
So, is there any place sacred where a phone can’t be these days?
I don’t think so.
From date nights at a table for two to the dreadful waiting in the dentist lobby, pregnant pauses of life yield scrolling like thistle weeds.
And this is another win for the social content creator—there’s no wrong place or environment to scroll in. The public are making that clear. It’s normal to see people scrolling as they walk through a busy intersection as they hope the white blinking walk light guides them safely across the street.
What is the strangest place you’ve seen someone scrolling, as they cannot bear to coexist without the augmentation of social or AI? Are public micro-scroll moments healthy? Are these “digital breathers” feeding a dopamine addition or are they just relaxing the mind, allowing escape from reality.
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