Breaking Free from Doomscrolling: Protecting Your Mental Wellbeing

Scrolling through social media can create a rollercoaster of emotions. With just a flick of your thumb, you can go from watching a cute cat video to reading about the latest natural disaster to forever alter lives.

One second, you're sending a congratulatory message to a friend that just got married, then you're frantically composing a counterargument to why pineapple doesn't belong on pizza. You finish constructing the perfect rebuttal, look at the time, and realize its 1:47am and you need to be up at 5am for work.

It can be easy to become consumed by all the stimuli we encounter on our screens. So much so that we can end up wasting hours of our time enveloped in a single headline or story. The more we read, the angrier and more frustrated we become. This phenomenon has become known as "doomscrolling".

What Is Doomscrolling?

Doomscrolling is the act of spending large amounts of time viewing and interacting with negative media. The types of media typically associated with doomscrolling include videos, social media, and websites (especially news-related ones).

People who doomscroll often lose track of time due to their intense focus on the media they are consuming. These people often find themselves venturing "down the rabbit hole" in content, which can negatively affect their mental and physical wellbeing.

Where Did The Term 'Doomscrolling' Come From? 

Doomscrolling is a rather new term, coined in 2020 during the early stages of the global COVID-19 pandemic. It gained popularity through events such as the 2020 US presidential election, the storming of the US Capitol in 2021, and the ongoing Russia/Ukraine war.

It isn't difficult to find why this phenomenon caught on so quickly. Much of the world's population was stuck at home during the pandemic. With the world at a standstill, many people relied on their screens for work, keeping up with friends and family, and entertainment. This led to a large increase in screen time and media consumption, especially among children and teenagers.

Doomscrolling And 'Mean World Syndrome' 

Doomscrolling has ties to an older study conducted in the late 1960s which was known as the Cultural Indicators Project (which later became known as Cultivation Theory and helped coin the phrase "Mean World Syndrome").

George Gerbner, a professor of communication and the creator of the study, wanted to see if there was a correlation between people's negative perception of the world and the amount of television they watched on a daily basis.

This test consisted of three groups of people: light viewers (less than 2 hours of TV a day), medium viewers (2-4 hours of TV a day), and heavy viewers (4+ hours of TV a day). Dr. Gerbner found a direct correlation between television consumption and negative worldview.

The people who watched more television were more likely to develop strong, negative views and beliefs that the world was becoming more violent and dangerous.

Since the publication of his studies, many scientists and psychologists have used Dr. Gerbner's work as a guideline, modernizing his findings to extend to other forms of media including video games, mobile apps, and social media.

Why Do We Doomscroll? 

Heated topics like politics, news, and conspiracy theories are often the culprits of leading us to doomscroll. These topics are highly divisive, play with our emotions, and can create a whirlwind of negative feelings including anxiety, uncertainty, and fear.

We can easily become sucked into these topics, spending hours reading, watching, and researching in hopes of being well informed about what is going on in the ever-changing world we live in.

Some people are driven by morbid curiosity (finding entertainment or heightened interest in dangerous or threatening topics). These people are often fascinated by the macabre, violent acts, and/or crime documentaries. Seeking out new information regarding a murder mystery or research on a deformity can easily transform into doomscrolling.

The popularity of mainstream media has been declining steadily year over year. More people are turning to alternative media sources like short-form videos. These videos are often published on social apps like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube where they can be shared with friends or influenced by algorithms.

These videos are often more entertaining than the standard 11 o'clock news but they can also spread false information.

Doomscrolling Vs. Infinite Scrolling 

Doomscrolling and infinite scrolling are often used interchangeably but there is a difference:

Infinite scrolling is the act of casually perusing social media, drip feeding the reward centre in your brain that releases dopamine. Counting likes, watching reels, or scrolling through stories are all examples of infinite scrolling.

Social media apps are designed to keep you engaged on their platforms. Using algorithms based on what you engage with, they push customized advertisements tailored to your interests (also known as 'microtargeting'), suggest other pages of similar topics, and bombard you with content similar to what you liked and shared in the past.

Over time your feed will be filled with things that you enjoy, which creates more dopamine, giving you a sense of satisfaction and keeping you on the platform longer.

Infinite scrolling can quickly transform into doomscrolling when the content you're engaging with starts to affect you negatively. You may begin to feel angered, frustrated, or even saddened by what you see, and this may lead you to engage with the content even more, compounding the negative emotions and feeling much worse.

Doomscrolling And The Fear Of Missing Out 

Being connected to others is a basic human need, and thus we feel secure when we're connected. With the digital world right at our fingertips, it's never been easier to seek information or to stay on top of the latest news and trends.

However, some people become anxious when they feel they aren't included or are missing out on valuable information and experiences.

The Fear Of Missing Out (a term coined by Patrick McGinnis, who has a podcast all about FOMO which you can listen to here) has become a somewhat popular term for the resentment, fear, or loss some people experience when they aren't included in social activities. This can create intense feelings of anxiety, loneliness, low self-esteem, and depression.

While knowing what's going on in the world around us can help us strengthen our relationships, it can also harm our mental health if we consume too much or go down the rabbit hole. This creates a sort of catch-22, as we want to be informed but we know we need to tread carefully to avoid getting sucked in to a downward spiral of negativity.

Doomscrolling And Brain Rot 

Doomscrolling and brain rot have both become popular buzzwords in recent years. While they aren't exactly the same, they are often used in conjunction with one another.

Brain rot refers to internet media, typically short-form videos, which are low in quality and value and often contain numerous internet references, existing intellectual properties (like movie and TV characters), and popular slang and memes. Perfect example: Skibidi Toilet.

The thumbnails for these videos are often in bright colours and have at least one character that children and adolescents will recognize, which captures their attention and makes them click. Unsuspecting parents may not realize they're brain rot videos if they are out of the room while the child is watching.

With the quick, mindless dopamine fix they provide, brain rot videos can easily lead into scrolling spirals. The effects of brain rot consumption include brain fog, reduced attention span, decline in cognitive abilities, and lethargy. This can lead to negative effects on decision making, complex problem solving, and memory.

What Are The Negative Effects Of Doomscrolling? 

Doomscrolling may start off as a mindless activity, possibly driven by a quest for knowledge, but it can easily develop into an unhealthy obsession with numerous negative mental and physical effects including:

• Depression and anxiety

• Feelings of hopelessness and helplessness

• Increased stress

• Reinforced negative thought patterns

• Catastrophizing

• Insomnia

• Isolation

If you suffer from doomscrolling and want to break the habit, read our article 15+ Ways To Stop Doomscrolling: Easy Strategies For A Healthy Digital Life. That article contains many useful ways to help you stop doomscrolling and to avoid falling back into the unhealthy habit.

What Makes Doomscrolling So Addictive?

One reason why doomscrolling is so addictive comes from our evolutionary survival instincts. Our desire to educate, avoid, and eliminate potential dangers can prolong our lives and keep our families safe.

This is something humans have been doing for thousands of years. This mechanism is also known as our fight or flight response.

We are also social creatures. The desire to be included in conversations can lead us to try and stay up to date with the latest breaking news stories, social issues, and economics.

On the surface, this can make us look like the best-informed person at the water cooler, but subconsciously we could be developing negative worldviews, which could lead to doomscrolling and mean world syndrome.

Summary

Doomscrolling can have detrimental effects on your health. Being aware of it and stopping yourself from endlessly scrolling will allow you to focus on more important things like spending quality time with friends and family, developing skills, or enjoying a hobby. It's perfectly fine to be aware of what is going on in the world, but, like anything, it's best to do it in moderation.

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