Top 10 Survival Tips for Youth in the era of pointless Doomscrolling.

...and for those who still identify as youth.

Here is my top 10 advice to the youth which you should read with this music.

1. Doomscrolling Is the New Smoking Habit

As a former doomscroller, I can say this with certainty: doomscrolling is the new smoking. You know it’s bad for you, you don’t even enjoy it after a point, and yet you can’t stop. Unlike smoking, which has years of research and government-funded warnings behind it, doomscrolling hasn’t been recognised as a serious addiction. That’s part of the problem: no urgency, no public concern. Just endless suffering disguised as entertainment.

Also, the opposite of doomscrolling is not digital detox. That’s just marketing: like liver detox teas. We no longer live in a world where the debate is between offline vs online world. The internet is real life now. You can’t escape it, but you can regulate it. At least to a slight degree.

Start with the basics: check your screen time daily. Feel a little shame. Let that shame guide you. I use an app called Opal (thanks to Vimoh’s recommendation), which blocks certain apps during the day. It helped me regain some sanity. This isn’t some influencer plug: there are many apps like this. Use whichever works.

The point is simple: doomscrolling is a health hazard. And it’s slowly killing the idea of quality leisure.

2. Why Being Vulnerable Online Doesn’t Really Work

One of the biggest lies the internet sold us is that opening up online helps. That this is a safe space. That being vulnerable in public will somehow lead to clarity. That loneliness can be cured by sharing your feelings with strangers on a screen. It rarely works that way.

If you’re going through something difficult, chances are you’ll end up on the radar of a budding Instagram therapist building her brand off your misery. Or worse, an e-astrologer offering you a 20% discount on cosmic healing through the Astrotalk app.

The truth is: nobody wants to hear your problems for free. At least not in the online world. It’s like crying in the middle of a party. “My DMs are open” is another lie. No one’s listening:they’re just waiting for their turn to talk. And in a space built on collective narcissism, even sincere empathy gets drowned in the noise.

You’re better off finding a few friends in the offline world you can loiter with and talk nonsense. That does more for your soul than all the online affirmations and wellness reels combined.

There’s a quote often misattributed to Dostoevsky that fits perfectly. It goes: “Talking nonsense is the sole privilege mankind possesses over other organisms. It’s by talking nonsense that one gets to the truth. I talk nonsense, therefore I’m human.”

You almost wish he had said it.

But there is something similar that Hindi writer Basant Tripathi wrote:

क्या हुआ
(What’s the problem)

गर लोग घूम रहे सड़कों पर बेवजह
(if people are roaming the streets without a reason)

चौराहे पर खड़े गप्प हाँकते
(standing at crossroads, chatting aimlessly)

वज़ह की मारी शफ़्फ़ाक दुनिया में
(in a world obsessed with purpose and clarity)

कुछ तो बेवजह हो
(let something be without reason too)

शुक्रिया, खाली लोगो!
(Thank you, aimless people!)

Finding handful of friends ( by which I mean one or two) who talk nonsense without an agenda are the underrated bliss. They fix life more than the online stranger who says “sending sunshine your way” which is a strange thing to say in a country that is already relentlessly sunny and unbearably hot.

3. Don’t try drugs and overdose of alcohol to fix the sadness of life.

I once asked writer Udayan Vajpeyi in my podcast about a popular belief: that drugs and psychedelics help artists access their creativity. The idea that self-destruction somehow leads to artistic greatness. He said something I still think about (not verbatim): Existence is already a form of suffering. So when someone takes psychedelics to suffer more in the name of art, they’re assuming they weren’t suffering enough to begin with. But to be alive is to ache. You don’t need extra to inflict suffering.

That conversation may feels dated now in the current digital world. We live in the age of creators, not artists. Though the categories sometimes blur. A creator, by definition, works with strategy, growth plans, and future projections via brand deals. In this world, there is little room for artistic sadness. The creator’s job is to live happily and show the internet they are having the best time of their lives. Even sadness has its place, but only if it can be monetised.

But perhaps the more useful idea is to accept that life, by default, involves suffering. No melodrama. Just a baseline truth. There will be moments of pleasure and joy, but they don’t cancel the fact that to exist is to struggle. And that shouldn't be a source of panic. It is simply an understanding of how life works. The goal, then, is not endless happiness but to make existence more bearable. To reduce the anxiety of not feeling happy enough.

Even happiness, when it comes, is earned. It isn’t the default human state. And perhaps, even being less sad is a perfectly satisfactory condition.

4. “This too shall pass” is both a cliche and a prophecy.

It doesn’t mean things will get better. It just means they’ll change shape. People get replaced. Moods shift. Hairlines retreat. Storms don’t always disappear. Sometimes they simply become background noise you learn to sleep through. Like that strangely popular ASMR video on YouTube where people fall asleep listening to the sounds of World War II bombings.

5. Don’t get influenced so easily:

It’s never been easier to outsource your thinking. Opinions now arrive in sleek formats: tweets, reels, carousels, infographics. You don’t even have to feel something to repost it. There’s a shortcut for every emotion. Empathy, rage, grief: all available as templates. Share one at the right time and it might even seem like you’ve thought deeply about it, even if you clicked share while half-asleep.

There is now certain kind of numbness of consumption. The tragedy is not that we don’t get what we desire, but that we’re no longer even sure what it means to truly desire something.

Now, in the post-AI world, even confusion feels inauspicious. Why sit with a thought when a bot can finish it for you? Why write incoherently for years when a tool can mimic coherence in seconds? Everything is at your fingertips. What often gets lost is the original reason you wanted to say something in the first place.

But if you never let yourself get lost in thought, if you never struggle to understand what you actually think about the world or yourself, you slowly lose the edge that made you human. You may produce more. It may even look impressive to your followers. But something quiet starts to die. The instinct to pause, to doubt, to ask why any of it matters.

In a world rushing toward speed, clarity, and synthetic perfection, maybe the most radical thing left is to sit with a thought that has no immediate use.

6. Life isn't a singular journey on an emotional highway.

It’s most certainly an Indian road; full of potholes, badly marked turns, and yet you’ll still have to pay the toll tax. It rarely makes sense, but that's just how it is.

Along this route, you'll occasionally surprise yourself with sparks of intelligence, and just as often, run into gentle C-spots of mediocrity. That’s alright. Accepting your own mediocrity is important it keeps the engine running. This whole idea of “never give up” is overrated. Sometimes, what you're chasing isn’t even meant for you. It’s okay to give up and find a new direction. Reinvention is part of life.

Telling yourself you have "passion" and your life is worthless if you don’t get ‘that one thing’ is often just a performance to keep the adrenaline going.

In 2011, I visited Infinity Mall in Andheri, Mumbai. I was looking for work. A young man I met said he was going to make a film and had meetings lined up with actors. He asked me to tag along. We sat at the food court and I quickly realised he had neither a script nor a plan-just a lot of free time. But so did I, so I stayed.

He was auditioning someone: a thin man who had overdressed for the occasion and applied way too much Fogg deodorant, which was bravely trying to outdo the sizzler smell of next table.

The director boy asked him, "Kitna passion hai re tere mein?"

"Bahut passion hai, sir."

Kya kar sakta hai passion ke liye?"

"Kuch bhi."

Then the boy pointed to the railing on the fourth floor and said:

"Isse kud ke dikha."

"Khud jaaun?"

"Khud jaa."

He was almost ready to run, but stopped halfway.

"Arrey arrey ruk jaa, main samajh gaya-passion hai re tere mein."

I was eating a McAloo Tikki burger, watching this silent theatre of performative passion. Neither of them had any real plan. But the belief that they had “passion” gave them a kick. Passion didn’t need a direction. it was the destination.

But at the same time, I do accept that surviving in any uncertain industry does require a bit of irrational passion. But may be can’t be your entire personality.

I once had a conversation with filmmaker Neeraj Ghaywan during a tough time when I was struggling to make sense of life and work. He said something that stayed with me: “Whatever you're trying to do, do it fast because passion doesn’t last long. It deteriorates with age.”

It was a sane and absolutely true piece of advice. At the same time scary too. What if I won’t have any passion for things which I love at the moment ? But years later, I also realised-why make passion the central reason to create anything at all? It’s a good kick, sure. But not everything needs to begin or end with passion. Some things grow from habit, boredom, or even quiet stubbornness. And that’s fine too.

What worked better for me than passion was finding a mildly boring activity I could commit to every day. For me, that was writing. I’ve written something almost every day from 2010. No word count goals. Just something, everyday. It’s often frustrating. Most days are thankless. But even when nothing else works, I can still write.

So instead of chasing passion that fizzles out, find something slightly boring and commit to it for a very long time. In the long run, it’ll serve you better than any occasional mad and uncertain burst of passion.

7. Can Money Buy Happiness?
Maybe it can, maybe it can’t. But one thing is certain that money gives you enough strength to pull happiness in your direction.

8. Maybe the World Doesn’t Owe You Anything

That’s not a reason to become a nihilist. It’s just a reason to stop shouting into the void expecting applause. Most people are too tired, too hungry, or too distracted to care. Do what you do, but don’t expect standing ovations.

The world isn’t fair, and success doesn’t always come from doing things the “right” way. It’s a uniquely chaotic time, where nothing stays certain and not even the rules. What works today might backfire tomorrow. In this fast-moving world, clarity is itself an illusion and confidence a marketing posturing.

In fact, by now we’ve also realised that the idea of historical progress was partly a lie. We’re not just moving forward instead we’re also sliding backward in many ways. Some advances happen, yes, but the kind of cruelty unfolding across the world today is immense.

And in the shadow of such vast, industrialised suffering, our personal crises start to look like minor scheduling problems.

This is why if you are expecting too much from the world, you’ll end up disappointed. To avoid disillusionment, lower your expectations. See the world for what it is: an indifferent and cruel place with occasional spots of beauty. That’s enough.

9.More Music, Please

If you want to understand the world, listen to more music and fewer podcasts.

10. Don’t fully trust anyone who posts “Here’s my top 10 advice to youths.”
Life is too messy to be summed up in a list. It’s mostly trial and error. Mostly error.

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