Zen and the Art of Instagram Scrolling

Lying on my back in Shavasana at yoga on Monday, I tried to work out whether I had entered a flow state at any point during the practice. Was I in flow right now? The fact that I was thinking about it indicated that I probably wasn't, but you never know.

Since watching The Alpinist at the weekend, I have been thinking about flow a lot. The film is a documentary about Marc-Andre LeClerc, a Canadian climber who performed record-breaking feats in the world of Alpine climbing, mostly by himself with no one else even knowing he was there.

Having another person or a camera filming him reduced the sense of flow he got from the climbing. The removal of all potential safety nets added to his sense of serenity, to the deepness of the flow state that he could achieve while climbing.

This is an extreme example of how someone obtains a flow state (and, I suspect, one of the most powerfully intoxicating examples of it, given the addiction climbers - not just people like LeClerc at the top of the field - have for the act of climbing), but it can also be achieved in less dangerous ways.

Other professional sportspeople often talk about entering the zone, a mental state where they are nothing but pure focus, acting on the instinct of infinite practice sessions, not consciously thinking about anything whatsoever, only doing.

You can reach it by writing too. I do so sometimes, most often if I am writing by hand or if I turn off the WiFi. Perhaps the most famous method is meditation. Which seeks to reach the state of empty-brainedness using nothing but thought, or rather, the absence of thought. This feels a lot harder than reaching it by writing, but a lot easier than reaching it by ice-climbing a frozen waterfall.

We have seen plenty of examples of people in a flow state on University Challenge, acting without thinking, accessing their knowledge from a place they aren't really aware of in the moment. Thinking consciously is too slow, and they need to be fast, to be able to enter a zen-like state and trust the muscle memory of the automatic thought patterns they have been practising.

Another common feature of the flow state is an unawareness of time passing.

This brought me to another question:

Do we enter a flow state while scrolling Instagram?

Now hear me out - you are on Instagram, or Twitter, or TikTok, YouTube, whatever. The medium is irrelevant because they all operate in the same way. They hijack our attention and keep us focused on whatever they are showing us. We aren't thinking, we are just flowing from post to post, video to video, reel to reel, and then when we look up we find that half an hour has passed.

Intuitively it feels like this can't be a flow state, because everyone agrees that it is not a good thing. We leave the experience dissatisfied, drained of dopamine because we've been getting all of these minor hits, crashing our supply.

So, that must be the difference. I was going to write something about fugue states, but I've turned the WiFi off so that I don't accidentally enter a Google-based flow state, so I'm not able to check what a fugue state actually is. From my understanding, they are different to a flow state because you don't have any recollection whatsoever of what you were doing when you were in the state, whereas with a flow state, you have a constant, detached awareness of what's going on.

I wrote last year about dopamine, and about how dopamine is built by effort. It doesn't take any effort or focus to reach the state of scrolling Instagram. The effect may be the same but there hasn't been any effort to reach it, making it hollow. Maybe that's it.

If anyone else has some genuine physiological expertise I would welcome a second opinion on the matter. Even if you've got no expertise, to be honest, I mean, I have none and I've just written an essay on the subject.

I'm going to try and maintain my proper sense of flow here, even though I have to turn the internet on to watch the episode again. The odds of me being distracted by a YouTube video about the Luka Doncic trade are about 1/2 I'd say. Now, Luka Doncic - there's someone else who can reach a potent flow state. Step back to the left, three-point game-winner. That sort of stuff can only come from a powerful state of meditative focus.

Tonight's University Challenge match was for the last quarter-final place and saw Warwick facing Oriel, Ox.

I've already watched one video about Luka, but come on, it's the craziest trade in the history of American sports. A man is allowed to revel.

Here's your first starter for ten.

Rajan says that Oriel were one of only two teams to come from behind to win their first-round matches, and that can't possibly be true, can it? Unless the definition of coming from behind is that they were losing at the halfway stage or something? I'm going to check this out after I've seen the episode but I don't believe that stat for a second.

Hart kicks things off for Warwick with alien, and they take a single bonus on golfing terms. One of the questions asks about hazard, a term used in golf and tennis. Or so I thought when I first heard the question. I couldn't work out when the term hazard is used in tennis. Instead, it is a term used in golf and real tennis, which is a completely different game from lawn tennis.

A neg from Sharkey puts Oriel on minus five, and Hart capitalises on the mistake with his second consecutive starter. Watson keeps the streak going for Warwick with palliative, and Rajan lets them off with distance instead of displacement, which is pretty generous, given that the question mentioned velocity rather than speed.

Armstrong gets Oriel going with croissant (pronounced immaculately) on the picture starter, but they can't keep up the momentum, and Warwick hit back immediately through Siddle and Hart. It is 100-5 now, so Oriel will have to rely on that comeback spirit once again.

Taseen gets them going, and Armstrong recognises All Shook Up on the music starter within a few notes. But Warwick aren't interested in making a game of it, with Hart and Watson stretching the lead back out to more than a hundred points.

Sharkey takes the second picture starter with Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and spins his hands as if to say 'let's go!', but they're going to have to go on quite the run to haul Warwick back. Still, through Taseen and Sharkey, they make a little go of it, but they're coming from too far back, and Warwick don't want to take any risks, cutting the comeback off before it can grow any legs.

Warwick 215 - 110 Oriel

From the halfway stage, the two sides were evenly matched, but Warwick's superior start sees them become the eight side to reach the quarter-finals. It also means there are no Oxford sides left, though there are two from Cambridge.

• Open beat UCL from 0-20 down
• Oriel beat Durham from 70-130 down
• Cardiff beat St Andrews from 0-40 down
• LSE beat Leicester from 45-55 down
• St Edmund Hall beat SOAS from 75-90 down

So, I am presuming they're only counting the Teddy Hall and Oriel wins, but if you'll permit by pedantry, Open, UCL and LSE also won having been behind at one stage.

It is still remarkable that all of the other teams were leading right from the first question, but I don't think it is true to say that Oriel were one of two teams to come from behind.