Have you ever picked up your phone to aimlessly browse social media, only to find yourself sucked into a vortex of terrifying information that captures your attention but destroys your nerves? There’s a word for that: “doomscrolling.”
Droomscrolling— It's not good.
It’s called “doomscrolling” (or “doomsurfing”) — a portmanteau that Merriam-Webster defines as “referring to the tendency to continue to surf or scroll through bad news, even though that news is saddening, disheartening or depressing”.
It's 11:37pm and the pattern shows no signs of shifting. At 1:12am, it’s more of the same. Thumb down, thumb up. Twitter, Instagram, and—if you’re feeling particularly wrought/masochistic—Facebook. Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic left a great many people locked down in their homes in early March, the evening ritual has been codifying: Each night ends the way the day began, with an endless scroll through social media in a desperate search for clarity.
We’ve all been there: You hop on your phone to learn what’s unfolding with the pandemic or in the political landscape and all of sudden you’re completely sucked in by the latest bit of bad news. Your heart rate quickens as you flick through post after post after post. It’s all terrible, but you can’t stop now. You need to know. Your thumb can scarcely keep up with your eyes as you scan hungrily for more information. When your screen runs out of fresh content, you hit refresh and the ride starts all over.
The internet has a dark side. A recent McMaster University study is the latest to confirm the adverse effects of too much screen time: The connection between internet use and mental illness is even stronger than previously thought. The survey of 254 McMaster University students, using the Young Internet Addiction Test as well as a new survey of the researcher’s own design, revealed that 42 per cent of subjects faced mental health issues as a result of excessive internet use, and 48 per cent of the total sample couldn't control their use of social media.
Social media’s inherent addictiveness is well documented. The kinds of pull-to-refresh and infinite scroll features used by the likes of Twitter and Facebook are notorious for affecting the human brain in much the same ways as casino games and cocaine. The 24-hour news cycle also keeps us tethered to our screens: Important information could break at any time, so we feel like we have to keep checking lest something significant slip past us. Between anxiously staying abreast of the news and desperately seeking some kind of entertaining diversion from it, we’re glued to our technology. Experts say the obsessive searching for information can have numerous mental health effects, including an increase of stress.
They add that staying informed and making connections while scrolling can be a benefit.Experts recommend that people limit their doomscrolling by setting timers or using apps that limit daily access to news feeds and social media sites.
Physical and psychological effects
Previous research has already shown a link between excessive social media use and increased feelings of depression and loneliness.Fixating on a deluge of news and social media during a pandemic that requires increased self-isolation likely only raises the risk of negative mental health effects.
“Many people think that they’ll feel safer by staying abreast of the latest news. Yet, they don’t realize that consumption of the negative news only leads to greater fear, anxiety, and stress,” Dr. Carla Marie Manly, a clinical psychologist and author of “Joy from Fear: Create the Life of Your Dreams by Making Fear Your Friend,” told Healthline.
“For some, doomscrolling becomes a ‘unsatisfying addiction’ that promises safety, security, or certainty when, in fact, the ever-changing, melodramatic news provides the opposite,” she said.
“Many individuals experience cognitive distortions such as catastrophizing, and doomscrolling could lead to an increase in ruminative thinking and panic attacks,” Dr. Leela R. Magavi, a psychiatrist and regional medical director at Community Psychiatry, a psychiatric care network based in California, told Healthline.
“A vicious feedback loop draws people back to news and scrolling yet again. This transient assurance gained by reading the news worsens anxiety over time,” she said.
This dynamic can also disrupt your sleep and make your attentiveness and overall performance suffer the following day, experts say.
“Given that mental health is connected to physical health, it’s no surprise that negative habits such as doomscrolling negatively affect the physical body, from interfering with sleep to creating a craving for comfort food and overeating,” Manly said.
“In the long term, doomscrolling can increase levels of cortisol and adrenaline, both of which are stress hormones. Research routinely shows that chronic levels of elevated stress hormones are associated with many physical health issues, including heart disease, diabetes, and obesity,” she said.
Social media companies design their platforms to maximize our engagement, which in turn increases their profits. They use algorithms to present us with content based on what we have consumed in the past so we are more likely to click again and again. For many users, addiction to these platforms can become exacerbated by the abundance of “doomsday news” circulating in 2020. Evolutionarily, humans are “wired to look out for threats” says psychologist Dr. Amelia Aldao. “The more time we spend scrolling, the more we find those dangers, the more we get sucked into them, the more anxious we get.” When we consume negative content, the feed becomes saturated with more of it. It’s easy to see how this can become a vicious cycle.
If we aren’t mindful about what we consume and how often we consume it, we will ultimately become overwhelmed with feelings of negativity about the state of the world. If this description seems all too familiar, you aren’t alone. Luckily, there are an abundance of strategies recommended by experts to break the doomscrolling cycle.
Ultimately, you can't avoid how intense things are right now, but doomscrolling on the regular isn’t doing your physical or mental health any favors—and it's definitely not helping your loved ones or society at large, either. “This is the time for everyone to be really mindful of what we’re doing, and to try to do better,” Yeager says—and if that includes putting your phone away once in a while, so be it.
The content is really good and helpful
ReplyDeleteThank You!
Delete