By Dr. Jeremy Holloway
Dr. Jeremy Holloway is a professor, researcher, and founder of Tellegacy, a national program combating loneliness and social isolation through intergenerational connection.

It’s easier than ever to find a guide. Open Instagram, scroll through TikTok, watch a few Reels, and you’ll see no shortage of people offering you daily wisdom, motivational clips, or spiritual insights. You can follow dozens—hundreds, even—and feel like you’re being led somewhere.

But is anyone actually mentoring you?

Today, we have more access to advice than ever before, but less willingness to let others truly speak into our lives. Not to entertain us. Not to confirm us. But to challenge us. And challenge, more often than not, is something we’re now trained to avoid.

We are living in what I call the scrolling mindset—a way of thinking shaped by the tools we use. On social media, when we don’t like something, we simply scroll past it. The algorithm adapts, learns our preferences, and offers us more of what we already agree with. We are never truly asked to sit with discomfort. Why would we be? Disagreement feels like a glitch in the feed.

But here’s the catch: our scrolling behavior isn’t just digital anymore—it’s psychological. We’ve started to scroll past people in real life too.

We don’t just “unfollow” voices we don’t agree with—we disconnect from them altogether. We ghost, we avoid, we retreat to echo chambers where validation comes easy and accountability is rare. We surround ourselves with confirmation, not confrontation. The problem is, real growth never comes from being constantly confirmed. It often comes from being gently—but truthfully—disrupted.

Think back. Can you remember someone who said something to you that you didn’t want to hear at the time—but you’re glad they said it? A mentor, a teacher, a parent, a friend? That discomfort might’ve irritated you in the moment, but over time, it probably made you better. More grounded. More honest. More you.

The scrolling mindset has made those people harder to find—and even harder to let in.

Social media creates a version of mentorship that feels good but rarely goes deep. I’m not discrediting the impact of digital voices—I have people online I follow daily for inspiration and encouragement. But digital guidance should complement real-life relationships, not replace them.

The more we get used to scrolling past opposing views, the more isolated we become. We start to believe that everyone thinks like us. We stop tolerating discomfort. And slowly, our ability to hold nuanced conversations or receive constructive feedback begins to erode.

This isn’t just a cultural shift—it’s a crisis of maturity. If we cannot sit across from someone who sees the world differently and remain present, grounded, and curious, we risk becoming emotionally fragile—even when we’re intellectually strong.

And in a society where loneliness and isolation are already skyrocketing, that fragility becomes dangerous. It leads to polarization. Mistrust. Division.

So what do we do?

We stop scrolling—internally and externally. We learn to sit with the hard thing. To stay in the room when someone says something uncomfortable. To allow a mentor—not a motivational post—to speak into our lives with truth, even when we’re not ready to hear it.

We need more voices that know us. Who see us. Who care enough not to sugarcoat what they see in us.

And we need to be brave enough to receive it.