You’ve probably heard of the term ‘doomscrolling’ and there’s a good chance you have been a doomscroller yourself, especially in the last two years. Doomscrolling is the act of scrolling through predominantly bad news online. Bad news stories can be addictive and I’ll admit that I used to check the news every half an hour at one point in 2020 when the pandemic first hit the world.
The news was terrible and every outlet was pouring out terrifying statistics and anecdotes about healthy people being struck down with Covid. It wasn’t just the news websites though. I found myself addicted to scrolling through social media too, just to try and hear more about the Covid crisis. Doomscrolling is when you want to keep up with the latest news, what ever is being reported. This in turn can harm your mental health, give you a warped perspective or the world and make you highly stressed.
Why doomscrolling the news is bad for your mental health
90% of news stories are negative or have negative connotations. For example, when was the last time you saw a breaking news story that was positive? If you watch different news channels for only a few days you’ll notice this pattern. The reason why 90% of news stories are negative is because negative stories sell. Good news stories have a no shock factor and the news companies know this. Bad news sells clicks and brings in the views.
For example, If you check the Fox News YouTube page you’ll see multiple negative clips being uploaded every day. These clips get millions of views within 24 hours and it doesn’t matter if what is being reported is true or not. The same can be said for CNN. Both sides of the political spectrum narrate their own versions of the news to feed their audiences. You can get a different truth about what is happening in the world depending on where you get your news.
This fact that the ‘news’ is being presented with an angle shows you that it’s not really the ‘news’, these companies are more like entertainment shows. They’re a far cry from what the news was originally intended to be – an unbiased presentation of what is happening in the world based on fact, not opinion.
The idea of ‘the news‘ is outdated. In fact, I’ve always thought that it is very arrogant of ‘the news’ to assume they know what we want to hear. I’m happy to hear about my local goings on but why is the news scattered with random stories from around the world? There are human beings behind these stories choosing what they think we should hear about. There is so much going on in the world that news portals have to design and edit what they want to present. Therefore, the news itself is subjective and hand picked based on what is popular.
Because the news and various different outlets know that negativity sells, it shows that there is an epidemic amongst all of us, the information consumers. After all, they’re only giving us what we want so they get more clicks. We’ve become addicted to the drama.
Why doomscrolling social media is bad for your mental health
Everything I said about doomscrolling the news can also be said for doomscrolling social media. At this point, social media is an extension of the ‘news’. This is because it’s interlocked with news websites. If you visit a news website and then go on Facebook, for example, you’ll be inundated with related stories. Fakebooks’ algorithms detect what you have been looking at outside of Facebook and use that information to feed you more of the same, even if you haven’t ‘liked’ a news page.
This shows that it can be easy to be influenced by controlled algorithms. Therefore, your view of the world can be warped to such a high extent, even if you’re innocently trying to scroll social media to see your friends posts. Big news companies like the BBC have a vast team of social media journalists that are employed to share articles on social media every hour or so. So, even if you’re trying to avoid the news and talk to your friends online, you’ll have a hard time avoiding what Facebook thinks you should be looking at.
Social media companies like Facebook are known to push negative news stories more than positive ones because they get more clicks. This creates an environment of despair and negativity and it become less of a social interaction environment. This was not always the case though.
When I first started using Facebook in 2007/08, it was a very basic website that had no ads and no sponsored posts cluttering up your news feed. It was raw and all you could do was chat with your friends – exactly what it was originally built for. Over the years Facebook has had to find ways of making money and the biggest thing is through advertisers. This means people pay Facebook to push their posts in front of you. The highest bidder gets to have their ideas spread around.
I personally find Facebook exhausting these days with all the noise from advertisers and I can see first-hand that it’s become less about connecting with people.
How to stop doomscrolling
So, how do you stop doomscrolling in a world where everyonw wants your eyeballs on their news reports?
Delete news apps and notifications
The first thing you can do is to decide if reading the ‘news’ everyday is worthwhile. Does it make you feel any better after you’ve read it? I personally don’t view reading or watching the news valuable at all. I always feel worse after I consume it. Sometimes it makes me feel incredibly stressed and anxious.
If you have any news apps you should consider deleting them. Not only can you end up doomscrolling them but they waste so much of your time like social media scrolling does. The next thing you should do is to stop notifications from websites on your device. You may have accidently activated notifications when visiting news websites. These websites do everything under the sun to bring you back to read their stories so they can get ad clicks. One of these things is push notifications.
Here’s how to disable them on Chrome;
- Go to Settings
- Privacy
- Site Settings
- Permissions and Notifications
You should then see all the websites that are sending you push notifications. You can delete any of them that are annoying you.
Clear your environment
Instead of looking into the either for some kind of satisfaction why not get some from doing a real-world activity. Not only will clearing up motive your and keep you busy but it’s mindful and can feel highly rewarding. If you’ve got something you’ve been meaning to do but you keep putting it off, stop procrastinating and get on with it!
The idea is to do something productive away from wasting away your time in the virtual world. Or, if you’re going to do something online, try something like blogging for a creative outlet instead of mindless scrolling on social media that probably only makes you feel worse.
Redefine what’s valuable
If you redefine what’s valuable to you, it’s actually easy to stop doomscrolling the news and social media. If you redefine your values and what you find valuable, you give yourself permission to choose productive things over hours of sitting on your phone doomscrolling. I used to view my time on social media as valuable, especially on lunch breaks at work. After all, it become habit and you can read just about anything if you search for it.
When I started to put less value on my phone and my mindless scrolling, I quit looking at the news through habit, I stopped going on social media to try and keep up with my friends and I even stopped upgrading to the latest and greatest phone on the market because although my phone is valuable to me, it’s way down the pecking order now.
Here’s a simple formula to start improving your mental health and redefining your values;
Identify the thing that drags you down > make it less valuable to you > do it less > feel better over time.
One of the reasons this was easy for me was because I remembered back to before social media and the days of mindless doomscrolling. When I was sixteen-years-old I didn’t have a phone that was capable of sending me all the information I wanted and I was still fine. If anything, I was happier. Back then you had to try hard to find information online. Now there’s an abundance of information, if not too much. I’ve seen how this can affect your mental health over a 10+ period. When you have an abundance of something, you value it less. When it’s scarce you value it more.
We live in an age where we are rich in information but the vast information we are rich in is light-weight and doesn’t satisfy us, therefore, we continue to doomscroll mindlessly looking for more and more. I’m not saying I want to go back to the days of Ask Jeeves but it’s important to realise this because technology moves so quickly and many people don’t think about the fact that the abundance-of-information-age is still very new, even though it feels like it’s been with us forever at this point.
How full are you tanks?
We all have mental energy tanks and we also all have the option of filling them up with what we want. Do you want to read a book? Maybe you’ll learn something new. Do you want to clean your house? Maybe you’ll fill your tank up with a sense of self-worth and motivation. Do you want to finish off decorating your kitchen? You’ll be tired at the end of the day but you’ll likely fill your tank up with pride and accomplishment.
I believe that we all have mental energy tanks. These tanks have limitations to them. They can be filled with negativity and too much of this negativity can cause our tanks to boil over. This is the tipping point where we can fall into a depression.
If you find yourself doomscrolling or pissing away your time on social media, there’s a good chance you’re steadily filling your tank up with FOMO (fear or missing out), low self-worth, resentment and general fear.
Overcoming doomscrolling takes time
If there’s one thing I’m certain of above anything else its that things take time, at least anything worth something.
Overcoming something like doomscrolling is exactly the same. No doubt you’ve been addicted to scrolling mindlessly on your phone and it’s probably got worse and worse over the years as you’re drawn to more and more apps and outlets. It likely won’t take years to overcome doomscrolling the online world but it will take time because it’s a big change of habit. After all, everyone’s glued to their phones these days.
A helpful way of looking at your cell phone is as a tool, not a lifestyle.
Your device is a tool to find information and connect with others and should be used as such when needed instead of constantly. You’ll no doubt know this already because you’ll be able to see the difference in how you truly feel when you’re browsing all day compared to when you take a break.
Need to do some research for school? go online. Need to send your friend an important message? go online.
Want to browse social media all day after an argument with an ex and feel sorry for yourself? That’s a recipe for disaster. You don’t need to attract more bad energy at those moments.
Doomscrolling Conclusion
Doomscrolling is easy to fall into, especially when you’re bored or lonely. The very nature of online information is addictive. This is the core of the problem ad it’s only getting worse. If you’re someone that’s already addicted to their phone, it’s easy to see that you may spend a lot of time scrolling through news websites.
Having a break from your phone and doing something else sounds too simplistic but it’s the only way to get away from the constant barrage of bad news.