PICTURE this: you open Instagram “just for five minutes.” Fast-forward an hour, and you have watched a dog learning salsa, a cooking hack you will never try, a random conspiracy thread about aliens and a motivational speaker telling you to rise and grind while you are still horizontal. Congratulations! You have been diagnosed with the scroll syndrome, the modern affliction where our thumbs are marathon runners and our minds exhausted spectators. Once upon a time, people read newspapers, watched TV or even spoke to each other. Then came the reels: bite-sized flashy videos engineered to keep you hooked. They are short, addictive and endlessly available. Like potato chips, you cannot stop at one. The difference is that reels don’t leave you counting calories, they leave you counting lost hours. Scrolling through reels is never-ending entertainment. Unlike books or movies, there is no ‘The End’. Each swipe is a gamble: at times we get something hilarious; sometimes, it’s inspiring. This unpredictability is what keeps us hooked. It is so astonishing that the social media feed learns our preferences so quickly. Forget people talking about last night’s TV episode, now it’s: “Did you see that reel where the raccoon steals a doughnut?” Sharing reels has become the new bonding ritual. Couples send them as love notes, friends as inside jokes and even parents as passive-aggressive reminders. Nowadays, parents drop reels as subtle nudges like sending a clip about tidying up the room. And let’s not forget the generational divide. Boomers still ask, “What’s a reel?” Millennials curate them like fine wine. Gen Z? They don’t watch reels — they are the reels. Their lives unfold in 15-second bursts, complete with background music and hashtags. It is a modern paradox that we watch reels about living in the moment while ignoring the actual moment. We promise ourselves “just one more reel” and watch clips about productivity while procrastinating on actual work. Soon, the reels may replace books, lectures, even therapy. Imagine going to a therapist because you are feeling empty, and he shows you a reel of a goat on a trampoline. No wonder thumb cramps will soon be recognised by the World Health Organisation as a symptom of the scroll syndrome. One thing is for sure: the scroll is here to stay. It is the treadmill we never asked for but keep running on because the next swipe might just be the one. This syndrome is the epidemic of our times, but at least it is a funny one. We are all guilty, and we all know it. The trick is to laugh at ourselves while acknowledging that maybe we should just put the phone down once in a while. Scrolling is not wrong; it connects us, entertains us and sometimes even informs us, but when endless feeds start draining energy, it is time to pause and step back. There is power in choosing when to engage and when to unplug. Let’s choose mindful scrolling over mindless swiping. After all, life isn’t a reel. It is longer, messier and doesn’t come with background music. But hey, if someone films it right, maybe it could go viral. The writer is a Mohali-based copy editor