The Politics of the Infinite Scroll and Contemporary Boredom (Or Lack Thereof)

Photo - Liviu Gorincioi

“Modern history has been a history of designing and agraveyard/museum of designs tried, used up, rejected abandoned in the ongoingwar of conquest and/or attrition waged against nature”. (Bauman 2004 p23)

Boredom, an emotion or feeling that has engendered the social machinations and dynamism of generations. In the age of short form content and the instant streaming service, we have at face value reached the ‘end of boredom’. Capitalist innovation has unquestionably produced the most sophisticated technologies of entertainment humanity has ever seen. The world is truly at our fingertips in a way that none before us could have ever conceived. Is this yet another epochal defining ‘success’ of capitalist modernity. Like smallpox, communism and dial-up internet, is boredom another ‘scourge’ too soon be relegated to history? Yet another conquest of ‘market driven’ technological progress? Or is the loss of boredom in our daily lives a reflection of something deeper and ultimately quite political?

Boredom is something we are all familiar with and something we have all undoubtedly experienced. It is a feeling we often try to escape in the modern world. Whether it’s through the limitlessness of a streaming service watchlist, or the never ending ‘watch later’ playlist, the volume of entertainment culture available to consume grows exponentially and is increasingly accessible. Modern entertainment culture is inextricably intertwined with the production of algorithmic platforms, like TikTok and YouTube; platforms dominated by short form video (SFV) style content. This style has seen a significant boom in recent years, so much so that even platforms which may not have traditionally fit the SFV model are now integrating the style, such as the music streaming service Spotify.

Much of our time outside of working hours is consumed by short from content, leaving less and less space for boredom. Recent research suggests that frequent exposure to short from content negatively effects our cognition (Nguyen et al. 2025). The price of constant entertainment is a degradation of our cognitive abilities.

The contemporary world also feels increasingly watered down. We see much of the cyber-spatial services that cannot be reduced down to shortform dopamine kicks feeling increasingly robbed of originality, sandwiched by adverts or generally sucked of substance. Think adverts on subscription-based platforms like Netflix, and the increasing pastiche drivel of the ‘culture’ they churn out. This is what the writer Cory Doctorow terms as ‘enshitification’ (Doctorow 2025). The worsening of cyber-spatial services directly correlates to their ever-expanding market dominance but crucially also to our lifestyle and free time.

It is hard not to ignore the connection between the enshitification of the services increasingly entangled in the way we live our lives and the way we subsequently feel. Enshittification is also a brilliant concept to use to describe the way that modern life increasingly feels. One factor that transcends contemporary demography is the feeling that things are worse than they used to be.

The possibility of cyber-spatial technology was immense. The dynamism of possibility at the advent of the internet, or during the days of early social media was palpable. What was once a promise of instant connection, or on demand entertainment is now often a draining addiction. What this leaves is an embittered feeling of alienation from what once seemed so promising. A feeling that, through the technology’s addictive tendencies, we are doomed to reproduce.

The late great theorist Mark Fisher described this as depressive hedonism. Rather than the conventional understanding of depressive anhedonia, that being an inability to find pleasure, the short form content, pastiche culture which dominates our hours of ‘downtime’ leaves us with an almost Kafkaesque inability to do anything else except pursue pleasure. A desertification of cultural engagement into a cadence of addiction, chasing one dopamine hit to the next. Yet, as Fisher states, “Depression is, after all and above all a theory about the world, about life”. (Fisher 2014 p.59). The enshitification of culture, of services and by extension the lives we lead, is not a matter of consequence.

The influence of the infinite scroll, dopamine titillating and ‘enshittified’ content on our lives are not organic consequences of the technology. In many instances, they are part of their design. Short form content is increasingly prioritised for its addictive, entrapping tendencies. Produced by companies whose wealth, and by proxy, power is increasingly monopolised and hoarded. “If the figure of discipline was the worker-prisoner, the figure of control is the debtor-addict. Cyberspatial capital operates by addicting its users” (Fisher 2022 p.25). Through ‘curing’ boredom what do we leave in its place? More time for work? Perhaps not in the traditional sense, but certainly more time for activity productive to the ‘invisible hand’ of market forces. Every scroll on TikTok, like of an Instagram post, watch of a Netflix show and comment on a YouTube video produces data about our lives, our yearnings, our desires and ultimately our-psyche. Personal information is capitals latest obsession for commodification; said information that further enriches the datasets of the tech-billionaire elite.

Capital attempts to distract us through technologies of titillation, technologies which have been contrived to enrich their owners but consequently addict and stupefy their users. The power of contemporary capital to dumb down our imaginative capacities is immense, reflecting the production of an ever inescapable ‘capitalist realism’ (Fisher 2022). The ultimate way to cement an arbitrary social system is to make all other alternatives seem inviable, or even better, truly incomprehensible. Contemporary capital possesses a dystopian, oppressive power that the authoritarian bogymen of yesteryear could have only dreamed of; that to not only silence dissent but void it from conception. Capitals quest to commodify anything and everything, grows to also consume cognition and the imaginative capacities of the psyche.

Here we see how the modern distraction from boredom is less of a consequence of technological innovation, than a contrivance of capitalism. What, the philosopher Bifo Berardi, describes as “The desertification of daily life, the hyper-acceleration of rhythms, the extreme individualisation of biographies, and an unbridled competition in the work market.” (Berardi 2015,p194-195). The loss of boredom doesn’t liberate; it controls and degrades. The trend of capitalism so far (particularly that of neoliberalism) is one of unbridled consumption and redistribution from the many to the few. A cyclical logic of “Boom, Bust, Quit” (Monbiot 2024 p11). Like it once did with the selling off of the public sector, neoliberal capital ‘booms’ of our constant titillation and commodification of our psyche. The consequence, the ‘bust’, is the deserted, enshitified psyche left behind. Does the increasing prevalence o AI cognition over human signal the ‘quit’ part of the cycle? Are we to go the way of the public library? Reduced down to our base functions, commodified until what remains is but a shell of our original selves?

Is there still space for boredom, what now?.....

Now, understandably, this diagnosis may seem bleak. While we may be facing yet another ‘crisis’ at the hands of capital, (the analysis on the prevalence of ‘crisis’ as a tool and feature of capitalism is already well discussed and not something to be pursued on this occasion) while our lives may feel increasingly decertified, we still have the capacity to be bored. How can we use this to our favour? What methods of social and personal oasification (desertification’s antonym) can we implement in our daily lives to combat the ever-encroaching scourge of capital accumulation.

Firstly, it is important to consider the material conditions which have produced the current state of affairs. As may be expected, the ideas of the burgeoning ‘digital minimalism’ movement is one combative strategy. Living in the analogue rather than the digital; time spent engaging with longer forms of entertainment, activity and living provide a viable solution. “Computers don’t really remember because they lack the ability to forget” (Fisher 2014 p.77). The enriching joy we seek may be found in the very things that we may initially cast off as ‘boring’. Luckily, the serotonin boosting activity has not yet completely been replaced by the dopamine exploiting in conceptual social value.

Secondly, it is key to not be afraid of boredom. While most of our media technology is focussed on its eradication, boredom still possesses a crucial place in the pantheon of human emotion and is one that should be embraced, as boredom is the breeding ground for great ideas. To be bored is to be plastic to the whims of the self. In an age of accelerationism, digital malaise and warped attention spans, slowness and an appreciation for the things in life that may not always provide immediate gratification is ultimately a radical act.

While the matters discussed in the article may seem scary, like much of the seemingly existential issues that life can present to us, their prevalence also enlightens a way out.

“Do not be frightened by despair. It does not delimit the potential for joy, and joy is a condition for proving intellectual despair wrong” (Berardi 2015 p226)