How Writing Instead of Scrolling Puts You Back in Control

By Vikki

There’s a moment we all recognise: you pick up your phone “for a minute”… and suddenly 40 minutes have vanished. You look up feeling wired, slightly anxious, and somehow further away from your own life.

That’s the feeling of being out of control with your attention.

Now compare that to a day when you’ve sat with a notebook for ten minutes and actually written down what’s in your head. You get up feeling clearer, calmer, more like yourself.

Here’s the simple truth: scrolling makes you absorb. Writing makes you create. One pulls you away from yourself. The other brings you back.

Scrolling Puts Your Brain in Reaction Mode

Scrolling feels harmless because you’re just “looking”. But your brain is doing a LOT:

• comparing your life to strangers
• absorbing hundreds of random opinions
• taking in micro-hits of drama, news, and emotional chaos
• getting tiny dopamine spikes over and over

Your nervous system is constantly being poked. You go into reaction mode:

• reacting to headlines
• reacting to comments
• reacting to other people’s lives

Scrolling is like handing your mind to the internet and saying: “Here, you decide what I feel today.”

No wonder you feel overwhelmed, behind, or not good enough after a long scroll session. You’ve been consuming instead of choosing.

Writing Puts Your Brain in Processing Mode

Writing does the opposite. Instead of reacting, you start processing.

When you write, your brain has to:

• slow down long enough to find words
• pair thoughts with language
• choose what actually matters to you
• organise feelings into sentences

Your attention moves from the outside world back to your inner world.

Scrolling asks, “What are they doing?” Writing asks, “What am I feeling?”

That’s where control starts: with awareness.

Why Writing Makes You Feel Back in Control

1. You Choose the Topic

On social media, the algorithm decides what you see.

On the page, you decide what gets your attention.

That tiny shift is powerful. You go from being pulled in every direction to saying, “This is what I’m looking at right now.”

2. You Hear Your Own Voice Again

After enough scrolling, everyone else’s voice gets louder than your own. Their opinions, their lives, their success, their drama.

Writing is like turning that volume down. Quietly, your own voice comes back:

• what you actually think
• what you actually feel
• what you actually want

When your own voice gets louder, decisions feel easier. You know what’s yours and what isn’t.

3. You Turn Overthinking into Clarity

In your head, problems swirl around in a loop. On paper, they have to line up in a row.

Writing forces your brain to take one thought at a time and put it somewhere outside of you. Suddenly things feel:

• less huge
• less foggy
• more solvable

The problem didn’t magically disappear. But you’re not drowning in it anymore. That’s control.

Why We Reach for the Phone Instead of the Pen

Before we get all “I should journal more”, it helps to understand why scrolling wins so often:

• It’s easier. Scrolling is passive. Writing takes a tiny bit of effort.
• It distracts. If you’re anxious or sad, your brain craves distraction, not depth.
• It’s dopamine. Every new video, post, or notification is a little hit of “Oooh, what’s next?”
• It’s habit. Your hand goes to your phone before you even realise.

But easy isn’t the same as helpful. Quick dopamine isn’t the same as true relief. A habit isn’t the same as a choice.

A Simple Swap: 5 Minutes of Writing Before You Scroll

You don’t have to quit your phone or become a journaling saint. You can just shift the order:

Before you scroll, write for five minutes.

That’s it. Just five minutes. It can look like:

• “Right now I feel…” and finish the sentence a few times
• three things that are stressing you
• three things you’re grateful for
• a brain dump: everything in your head, no filter

Most people notice that after five minutes of writing, the urge to scroll is weaker. The hook is gone. You feel more grounded in yourself.

What to Write When You “Don’t Know What to Say”

You don’t need to be a writer. You don’t need to be deep. You just need to be honest.

Use simple prompts like:

• “I’m tired of…”
• “If I’m honest, I wish…”
• “Right now, I need…”
• “Today, I want to feel…”

Write like no one will ever read it. Because they won’t. This isn’t for the internet. This is for your nervous system.

Writing Lets You Respond to Life Instead of Reacting to It

When you live in constant scroll mode, life feels like it’s happening to you. You’re always responding to something:

• notifications
• news
• messages
• other people’s moods

Writing flips that.

Scrolling: “What’s happening out there?” Writing: “What’s happening in here?”

As soon as you come back to “in here”, you start making choices again. You remember:

• what you want to do with your day
• who you actually want to respond to
• what doesn’t deserve your energy

That’s not just control of your phone. That’s control of your life.

If You Want to Feel More in Control, Try This

For one week, choose one tiny rule:

• Rule 1: No scrolling until you’ve written one page.
• Rule 2: When you feel the urge to doomscroll, write one paragraph first.
• Rule 3: Swap the first and last 5 minutes of your day: phone off, pen on.

You will notice:

• less anxiety
• more clarity
• a stronger sense of “me”
• a quieter nervous system

You don’t need a new personality, a 5am routine or a digital detox retreat. You just need a notebook, a pen, and a decision: “Before I give my mind to the world, I’m going to give it back to myself.”