Alexandra Konstanti

A personal reflection

It was Monday night when I fell victim to revenge bedtime procrastination. At 2 a.m., I was scrolling through Instagram reels, promising myself, “Just one more, and I’ll turn my phone off.” My mind urged me, “Choose wisely—this will be the last!” A young corporate lawyer at a firm in Sydney appeared on my screen, showcasing the free meals at her office. The story ended with her describing her final dish: “It was so good; it gave me the boost to work until 2 a.m.”

I turned my phone off. Here I was, scrolling at 2 a.m. while someone on the other side of the world was working at the same hour. Feeling strange about this realization, I decided to sleep.

Personally, I love eating while watching Netflix series. I’ve connected this habit with relaxation—my sacred time to unwind and disconnect. It’s that moment of the day when I don’t have to think about work, problems, or anything else—I just watch and enjoy my food.

During the day, I like listening to podcasts; they’re my go-to for company during housework and make me feel like I’m learning something new. On the other hand, writing demands digging through the internet and staying active on social media, juggling multiple platforms to create and refine content.

If I count how many hours I spend in front of a device or listening through one, it’s staggering to realize how intertwined my entire day is with screens and digital distractions.

Digital Leisure

It is a fact that all these digital platforms and the constant stream of information have shaped a concept of free time that everyone is familiar with. Doomscrolling for hours through TikTok videos, binge-eating while watching your favorite series, and relentlessly consuming content have become a big part of our everyday lives. We do “pebbling” now—sending memes to friends to show them that even when we doomscroll, we think and care about them. And of course, we are available 24/7 to every message on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Email—you name it.

“Revenge bedtime procrastination” comes after a long day of not feeling like your own self. The feeling of dividing and offering oneself to work, friends, family, messages, and information needs to be compensated with some “pieces”-gathering. And there it is: Scroll to gain control. Watch what you, and only you, want to watch. You are finally free.

Productivity Urge

Meanwhile, “the grind and hustle culture” keeps thriving.

With its relentless emphasis on constant productivity, hustle culture casts a long shadow on employee well-being. It also perpetuates the myth that an “always-on” grindset will help a person climb the corporate ladder (WellRight blog).

Every Instagram or TikTok producer has a new idea of how we can be our best selves and optimize our lives with hacks:

• “You should enrich your waiting in a queue with inspiring podcasts.”
• “You should read every day for 10 minutes.”
• “You should wake up very early, so that you have time to go to the gym and start your day fresh and productive.”
• “Look at what successful people do first thing in the morning.”

So many hacks, so little time!

As Wisecrack said in his video “Productivity: Are We Okay?”:
“This relentless pursuit of becoming better and faster has left no time for being human.”
(Great video, highly recommended!)

So, running toward optimization and getting things done during the day, bedtime seems like a good time to take things into our own hands. It’s our time to relax, connect with ourselves, and choose what we will do with these sacred moments. And we choose… to scroll.

A paradox is forming constantly before our eyes. We have connected leisure time with digital time, and what oppresses us, liberates us—and vice versa.

A Global Perspective

While people do their bedtime scrolling and take control of their lives for a short time, others in another timeline, in a different country, are working their asses off to be productive and successful. This fact makes me furious about how the planet’s scale has shaped human lives. However, I cannot foresee how digital evolution has opened not just a window, but a whole balcony door to explore and resonate with similar or different struggles from another side of the world.

For me, it kind of worked, seeing a woman working at this late hour while I could enjoy my “unproductivity.” Here came the guilt of not working again—but still, a sensation of being trapped in this paradox struck me.

The Paradox

There are many ways to reduce your scrolling time and reclaim intentional leisure for yourself without entering the maze of productivity-optimization-need-for-control-content-content-and more content:

• There are apps that offer to warn you and stop the data on your phone.
• There are many exciting things to do and explore, like starting a new hobby, walking in a park, going out and breathing fresh air, or just having a nice hot shower while listening to your own precious thoughts, rather than having a podcast in the background.

But this was not the intention of this piece. What was the intention of this piece anyway?

Maybe it wasn’t about solutions but about pausing—pausing to notice the paradoxes, the irony, and the shared humanness in it all. After all, recognizing the loop we’re caught in might just be the first step toward stepping out of it.

Or… maybe that’s just another piece of content waiting to be scrolled past.

What’s your own moment of realizing the paradoxes shaping our modern lives?