The 11pm Scroll Hole | Shu Dong Talk

It’s 11:07pm. I know this because I just looked at the time after finally putting my phone down for like forty-five seconds. My thumbs are sore. Not like sore from working out sore — sore in that weird, almost numb, tingly way that only happens when you’ve been swiping through TikTok for so long that your brain forgot you have a body.

I’m in bed. Lights off. The blue light from the screen is the only thing in the room, throwing shadows on the ceiling I’m too tired to actually look at. My cat is asleep on my legs. I can feel the weight of her, but also I can’t feel my legs anymore because she’s been sitting on them for two hours and I haven’t moved.

I keep telling myself — okay, just one more video. Just one more. Then I’ll sleep.

That was at 10:14pm.

It’s 11:07pm now.

I think I watched like 200 videos? I don’t know. I don’t even remember most of them. There was a girl ranking starbucks drinks. A guy teaching his dog to pray. Some wedding proposal where the bride cried. A dog who couldn’t figure out stairs. Another dog who could figure out stairs but was being dramatic about it. I laughed at all of them. I cried at one. I don’t know which one anymore. They all blurred together like some kind of content smoothie.

And the worst part? I didn’t even want to be on my phone.

I remember saying at like 7pm, “I’m gonna be in bed by 10 tonight. Real early. Real rested. Tomorrow’s gonna be good.” And then I watched TV for an hour, scrolled through Instagram for twenty minutes, told myself I’d only check Twitter for “like two minutes,” and then TikTok happened.

TikTok always happens.

You know what I mean, right? It’s not even about the videos. It’s about the feeling of being held. Like, the second I put the phone down, my brain starts running through tomorrow’s to-do list and every single thing I said wrong in 2017 and whether I forgot to reply to that one email and did I lock the door and what if my cat’s actually sick and I just don’t know it and —

And then the phone is back in my hand and the videos start again and my brain goes quiet.

It’s a pacifier. I’m 28 years old and I’m using a $700 device as a pacifier.

I told my friend about this last week. She laughed and said, “Oh I totally do that too.” But I don’t think she gets it. I don’t think anyone gets it. Because when I describe the 11pm scroll hole, I’m not just talking about being on my phone. I’m talking about the fact that I cannot seem to stop.

I have tried everything. Not really, but kind of. I downloaded an app that locks me out of social media after 10pm. I uninstalled it in three days because I needed the password to log into something else and I just never put it back. I tried putting my phone across the room. I got up to get it. Twice. Three times in one night. I tried reading a book. I read the same page eleven times and absorbed nothing.

I tried going to bed at 9pm. That lasted four days. Then one night I was “too awake” and the hole opened back up and I fell in face-first.

My therapist said something about how it’s a coping mechanism. Which, okay, yeah, I get it. I’m not stupid. I know I’m avoiding things. I know I should “sit with my feelings” or whatever. But sitting with my feelings at 11pm means sitting with the fact that I haven’t called my mom in two weeks and my job is making me feel like I’m slowly losing my mind and I haven’t seen another human being in person since Tuesday and I think I might be lonely but I don’t want to be lonely because if I admit that then I have to do something about it and doing something about it is exhausting.

The scroll hole doesn’t ask me to do anything. The scroll hole just holds me.

Is that pathetic? I don’t know. Maybe. I just know it’s real.

Last night — or was it two nights ago? — I looked at the time and it was 1:23am. I had a meeting at 9am. I had to be up at 7:30 to look like a person who sleeps. I did the math. Five hours and thirty-seven minutes. Not enough. Not even close.

I put the phone down.

I picked it back up.

I scrolled for like three more minutes, then put it down again. Then I picked it up. Then I put it down. This happened probably eight times in a row. My cat woke up and stared at me like I was insane. Maybe I was.

I finally gave up around 1:47am. I plugged the phone in across the room. I closed my eyes. I did not sleep. I lay there for what felt like three hours, which was probably forty-five minutes, thinking about absolutely nothing and absolutely everything.

When my alarm went off at 7:30, I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. A small truck. But still a truck.

I got up. I looked at my phone. The screen showed me my screen time report. Four hours and twelve minutes on TikTok yesterday. Four hours. I could have read a whole book in four hours. I could have called my mom. I could have gone to bed at 10 and woken up feeling like an actual human being.

Instead, I made the same promise I make every morning: “Tonight, I won’t do it.”

I did it again tonight.

I want to tell you I figured it out. I want to tell you I have a system or a trick or some kind of life hack. But I don’t. I’m sitting here writing this at 11:43pm with my phone in my hand. I just checked Twitter. There’s a man complaining about airline food. There’s a woman showing off her cat. There’s a news story I should probably read but won’t.

I think the worst part is the gap. The gap between putting the phone down and falling asleep. That window where it’s just me and the dark and my thoughts and the cat and the ceiling and the weight of every single thing I’m not dealing with. That window is so uncomfortable that I would rather be exhausted tomorrow than sit in it for ten minutes.

And I know that’s not sustainable. I know that eventually something is going to give. Either my job, or my body, or my mind. Something.

But I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t even know where to start. The app I downloaded didn’t work. The book on my nightstand is upside down because I haven’t touched it in a week. The phone across the room trick lasted one night. The therapist helps, but she’s not awake at 11pm. None of my friends are. That’s the whole point of 11pm, isn’t it? Nobody’s awake. Nobody’s watching. Nobody cares what you’re doing.

And that should feel freeing, right? No one to judge you. But it just feels lonely. It feels so unbelievably lonely.

I think about my grandma sometimes. She went to bed at 9pm every night and read the Bible until she fell asleep. She didn’t have a phone. She didn’t have TikTok. She didn’t have a screen time report telling her she wasted four hours of her life watching a dog fail at stairs. She just had a book and a lamp and her thoughts.

What did she think about? Did she have her own version of the 11pm scroll hole? Probably not. Probably she just went to sleep like a normal person. Probably she had a peace I will never understand.

I envy her. I really do.

I also know I’m not going to stop. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Probably not this week. I’m going to do the same thing I did last night and the night before and the night before that. I’m going to put the phone down and pick it back up. I’m going to scroll until my eyes burn. I’m going to tell myself tomorrow I’ll be different. I’m going to believe it for a second, then forget.

I don’t know what to do with that.

I just know that right now, at 11:51pm, my cat is asleep, my room is dark, my thumb is sore, my eyes are burning, and I am not okay. I’m not in crisis. I’m not falling apart. I’m just… not okay. I’m a little broken. I’m a little lonely. I’m a little addicted. I’m a little tired. I’m a little bit of all the things I don’t want to be.

And the phone is still in my hand.

And the videos are still playing.

And I don’t know how to stop.

[“Late Night Scrolling”, “Phone Addiction”, “TikTok Habit”, “Sleep Issues”, “11pm Problem”]