Shade Zahrai

on things that trigger an intense emotion.

So for me, a lot of it is animals in a shelter on the euthanasia list, or like animals that are mistreated, that are rescued.

And so I'm watching these things, crying my eyes out, feeling these intense emotions.

And then I just keep going.

I heard recently that this idea of the swiping, people would say, oh, it's a dopamine hit every time you swipe.

But actually, and I think this is more accurate,

What is happening is that it's the anticipation of maybe the next video will give me the feeling that I seek.

And so the swipe itself is the dopamine hit because it's anticipating that you're gonna get to the goal, which is that one video which will make you go, I'm good now, I can close it, but it never comes.

And so you watch the next video and you're like, no, that didn't really give me what I thought.

Okay, next one.

And so you get stuck in these loops.

And I think that's so powerful because it's, again, tapping into that drive that we have for something that's gonna make us feel fulfilled or whole, and then we never get there.

And it does feel like it's out of your control.

Sometimes I pull out my phone to post content.

We don't have a team that does that for us.

We do it all ourselves because for us, there's an element of, we like the authenticity.

Of like being there, writing the thing and posting.

So I'll pull out my phone to post content.

30 minutes later, I'm swiping, I'm stuck in a doom scroll, and I'm asking myself, why did I come on here?

That's right, to post content.