Bedroom boom-boom could be doomed.
The fun of a good ol’ fashion roll in the hay, apparently, doesn’t compare to the euphoria of a scroll on the screen.
Dismal new data shows that that an eye-popping one in 10 folks would rather fool around on their phones — than fool around with their partners.
Researchers for global technology manufacturers OnePlus surveyed 2,000 adults in the UK to find that Brits spend a collective 67.4 million hours of “doom scrolling” — laying in bed and thumbing through social media apps such as TikTok, Instagram and Twitter— on a daily basis.
And the nasty new-age habit is likely to trigger a series of damaging side effects, experts warn — including drowsiness, memory loss, decreased information retention and declined mental health.
The survey revealed that 28% of doom-scrollers are often tired or drained, while 22% feel anxious or overwhelmed.
Half of the respondents admitted that bedtime timeline surfing reduces their productivity (46%) and creativity (28%).
Overall, they wasted over 1.5 hours (96 minutes) doom scrolling daily — be it while enjoying quality time with loved ones (49%), on the toilet (41%), at a school event (13%), wedding (12%) or a funeral (6%).
More alarming, the Gen Z demographic, those digital natives aged 18 to 27, said they spent a staggering 2.5 hours (143 minutes) doing the deed — doom scrolling, not sex — each day.
The finding backs up other backs up other recent reports revealing that for Zoomers, sex has indeed taken a backseat to the generation’s addiction to technology.
Instead of getting hot and heavy in-real life, roughly 31% of the WiFi-obsessed whippersnappers say they prefer sexting or having contactless cyber sex via their devices.
Meanwhile, as a doomscrolling antidote, OnePlus has unveiled a new, hopefully healthier distraction — a unique first-person shooter web game that advocates for the anti-scroll movement.
Called Brain Rot Blaster, the game features characters inspired by the most common digital demons identified in OnePlus’ research.
Those evils include negative world news (32%), reality TV and celebrity drama (32%), luxury living (27%), conspiracy theories (26%) and relationship content (24%).
It’s on-screen merriment that’s meant to make players more conscious of their not-so-healthy scrolling habits. No addicts, please, however — the game self-destructs after a single play.
Increased awareness of the bad behavior could help rehabilitate the 44% of people who regularly lose track of time when scrolling, or the 22% who have no idea how much they scroll at all, per the data.
“It’s easy to fall into mindless scrolling — at home, at work, even around loved ones,” Celina Shi, Chief Marketing Officer of OnePlus Europe, said in a statement. “With this campaign, we’re encouraging people to take back control of their screen time and use their phones with more purpose.”
“Why lose hours to the scroll, when you could be creating something that inspires you instead?.”
