From Matt Gullett at Between Silicon and Soul

It’s past midnight. You’re on the couch, phone in hand, thumb moving almost by itself. TikTok, Instagram, Amazon—scroll, tap, swipe, like. Maybe you even add something to a cart or fire off a DM. Then the next morning, you look at the evidence—a half-finished post, a random purchase, a message you barely remember sending—and it feels almost alien.

You didn’t dream it. You were awake. But you weren’t fully present.

Neuroscientists are starting to call this digital sleepwalking. It isn’t literal sleepwalking, but a twilight state where the brain is awake enough to act, yet too tired to fully encode memory or exercise sharp judgment. Think of it as agency under fatigue—the ability to do things without really steering them.

What the Science Shows

The building blocks of digital sleepwalking are already documented:

• Decision fatigue: We make 30,000+ micro-choices a day, and the later it gets, the shakier those choices become. Judges reviewing parole cases, for instance, are far harsher in the afternoon simply because their decision-making circuits are worn down.
• Dopamine loops: Social feeds and shopping apps deliver just enough “reward” to keep us tapping, even when our brains crave rest.
• Impaired memory encoding: Lab studies show that toggling between digital tasks under fatigue reduces working IQ more than pulling an all-nighter. In practice, this means you can post, shop, or chat at 1 a.m.—but not remember why you did it by 9 a.m.

Put those together and you get a new kind of state: technically awake, but semi-conscious in terms of agency.

Why It Matters

For most of us, digital sleepwalking shows up as small regrets: a weird late-night purchase, an impulsive post, a string of DMs that feel “off” in the morning light. But zoom out, and the implications run deeper:

• For consumers: Some share of our digital footprint may be authored in a state we barely remember. What does that mean for trust in our own choices?
• For brands: Late-night “sleepwalk shopping” could drive sales—but it also risks higher returns, buyer’s remorse, and erosion of loyalty if customers feel manipulated.
• For researchers: If survey participants can’t recall late-night digital behavior, self-reported data becomes less reliable. Passive data, transaction logs, or time-of-day analysis may be needed to fill the gap.
• For workplaces: Employees showing up digitally foggy after late-night scrolling may look “present” but are cognitively running on fumes. That’s a hidden productivity and wellbeing issue.
• For parents and educators: A teen’s identity is partly authored in the half-conscious hours—posts, likes, and DMs that shape reputation but not memory. That complicates guidance and accountability.

The Meta-Skill: Guarding Agency Under Fatigue

At BSAS, we talk about meta-skills—the skills about skills. Digital sleepwalking points to a new one: guarding agency when tired.

It’s not about banning screens or wagging fingers. It’s about building awareness that our decision quality isn’t flat across the day. We need the literacy to know: This is me choosing at full capacity; this is me choosing under fatigue.

That looks like:

• Personal nudges: delaying major purchases until morning, setting nighttime prompts that ask, “Do I want to remember this tomorrow?”
• Organizational design: brands offering “next-day confirm” options for late-night orders, workplaces respecting digital boundaries after hours.
• Research adaptation: treating late-night consumer behavior as a unique context, not just another data point.

The Bottom Line

Digital sleepwalking isn’t about weakness—it’s about biology meeting technology. Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X—we’ve all been there, thumb moving in the dark while our better judgment nods off.

The challenge ahead is clear: how do we preserve agency under fatigue in a world that doesn’t pause?

That’s the BSAS lens. We don’t just name the trend—we ask what skills, safeguards, and systems will help us navigate it with integrity.

Next up: In follow-on posts, we’ll look at what digital sleepwalking means for researchers, for brands, and for families. But for now, take stock: what was the last digital choice you don’t remember making? And what might it mean that the machines remembered, even if you didn’t?