Lost in the Scroll: The Silent Struggle of Creators in the Digital Age

We are born creators. Before we understand the world, we create. As children, we scribble on walls, hum melodies without knowing the notes, mold stories out of nothing. There is a purity to creation—an instinct that needs no permission.

And yet, as we grow, something shifts. The act of creating, once so natural, begins to feel like a performance. We are told that it is not enough to simply create; we must package our art, optimize it, and ensure it is seen. Somewhere along the way, creation turns into content—meant not just to express, but to engage, to generate numbers, to keep up with an ever-moving digital tide.

There is a quiet difference between creating and producing content. Creation is personal, slow, and deeply fulfilling. It exists for its own sake. Content, on the other hand, feels like a demand—something to be shaped for consumption, shared at the right time, in the right format, to maintain visibility.

It makes me wonder: do we ever truly burn out from making art, or do we burn out from trying to fit art into a system that was never built for it?

Social media has rewritten the way we share and experience creativity. It has opened doors, connected artists with audiences, and made art more accessible than ever before. And yet, it also comes with an unspoken pressure—the pressure to always be present, to always be producing, to stay relevant. The process, once sacred, becomes something to be documented in real-time. The work, once given space to breathe, is now expected to arrive in constant waves.

For many artists, this shift is unsettling. The joy of creating can be overshadowed by the need to maintain an audience. The depth of a piece can feel at odds with the speed at which content is consumed. A work labored over for weeks might disappear in seconds, buried under an infinite scroll.

It’s not a simple problem, and perhaps there is no simple answer. Maybe the solution lies in finding balance—learning when to step into the digital space and when to step away. Maybe it’s about remembering why we create in the first place, beyond the metrics, beyond the screens. To give ourselves permission to create for the sake of creation, without the weight of expectation. Because at the end of the day, we are not just content creators. We are artists, storytellers, thinkers, and makers. And that, in itself, is enough.