I do it too. We all do. I pull out my phone out of Pavlovian habit—at a stoplight, waiting for my coffee, walking from point A to B—and just start scrolling. For what? I rarely know. I scroll to scroll. To not miss out. To cash in notifications for dopamine. But the flicking and swiping of my thumb is rarely purposeful and even more rarely satisfying. I scroll my way through all manner of diversions and distractions, and much of it offers momentary pleasure. But I rarely encounter things in my scrolling that nourish and satisfy.

To scroll is to be digital flâneur—sauntering down the Champs-Élysées of TikTok and Twitter. It is to be like Christian in John Bunyan’s Vanity Fair, as pastor Jeff Mingee observes in the article below. It is to be exactly where the algorithms want us to be—passive, aimless, ready to be enticed and entertained by whatever they want to serve up.

For lovers of art and culture, a posture of scrolling can numb us to the goodness, truth, and beauty we might encounter. But we must encounter it—not just swipe, scan, or skim through it. We must behold beauty in order for it to nourish us. And we can’t behold while we scroll. Too many other tasty treats beckon us to move on—as if in an extravagant buffet. Overwhelmed with the many delicacies and sumptuous options on offer (on Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Prime and all the rest), we take a few bites of one and then start in on another. We leave behind a trail of half-eaten, ravenously consumed food scraps. That’s not enjoyment. That’s gluttony.

As I write in The Wisdom Pyramid, the wise life is a slower burn. Less frenetic scrolling, more focused seeing. Less binging, more beholding.