Scrolling and swiping on devices consume significant bandwidth because the brain's bandwidth is so narrow that most energy goes to maintaining physical cellular structure (pumping sodium and potassium ions across membranes), leaving very little for thought.

causalpending

Speaker

Richard Cytowic

Evidence Quote

Now, you might think that as you're scrolling or swiping that you're not really doing much, but because that bandwidth is so small, and narrow, there's not much left over, and most of the energy goes towards maintaining the physical structure by pumping sodium and potassium ions across membranes.

Source

Your brain wasn't built to hold this much information | Richard CytowicBig Think
Created: 8/12/2026, 6:39:44 PM

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