There is a behaviour sometimes observed in captive animals known as pacing. A wild creature, confined to an enclosure too small or too barren to properly engage its instincts, will often walk the same route repeatedly... back and forth, corner to corner, loop after loop. Even when given a somewhat larger space, the pattern often remains. The animal moves between familiar points, repeating the same actions not because there is anything new to discover, but because its mind is starved for stimulation.
I have begun to notice a strangely similar pattern in myself online.
Without consciously deciding to, I will rotate through the same three or four websites over and over throughout the day. News feeds, social media, forums, video sites... places I may have checked only minutes earlier, fully aware that almost nothing could realistically have changed in that span of time. Yet I return anyway, looking for some small piece of novelty, some flicker of enrichment, some indication that something interesting has happened since my last visit.
The behaviour feels less like curiosity and more like a form of restless maintenance... an attempt to relieve understimulation through repetition. Much like an animal tracing the perimeter of an enclosure, I find myself tracing familiar digital pathways, not because they are rewarding, but because they are available.
I have started thinking of this habit as “digital pacing.”
Unlike traditional boredom, digital pacing creates the illusion of engagement. The mind feels occupied, yet rarely satisfied. One tab closes, another opens, and then another... until eventually the cycle loops back to where it began. The environment is vast, but the behaviour becomes narrow and repetitive.
And perhaps the strangest part is that, in many ways, we are both the captive animal and the keeper. Nobody is forcing us to remain in the enclosure. The doors are often open. Yet habit, convenience, and the endless promise of tiny rewards keep us circling the same worn digital paths.
The moment we recognize the behaviour, however, we gain the ability to interrupt it. To step away from the screen. To read something longer than a headline. To make something. Repair something. Walk somewhere. Sit quietly. Speak to another human being. To engage with experiences that do not arrive prepackaged through an algorithm.
A pacing animal cannot always leave its enclosure.
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