The Facts on Doomscrolling
Doomscrolling or doomsurfing is the act of us finding ourselves looking through, and our attention being more attracted to the negative stuff we see in all media.
We’re all a bit guilty of it, we see some bad news in the media or on our social feeds and we have to know more. We scroll through reading about it and then see something else negative and we have to know more about that. Before you know it, you’ve spent hours going through all the negative news you could find and you don’t believe happiness is a real thing.
But why do we do this?
“It’s all so bad but I… can’t… stop…”
Some people might think that doomscrolling is a new phenomenon but that’s not exactly true. Click on the news or read the newspaper and you’ll find the stories getting the most attention are those that are meant to give you a reaction, usually negative.
Sure you can say the only reason they focus on this type of news is because people watch and that gets them more ad dollars BUT someone has to be watching. They’re simply taking the easy way out and feeding us what we psychologically crave.
But why is doomscrolling addictive?
That comes from a little something we all suffer from called negativity bias. We, as humans, are more naturally inclined to be attracted to the negative things in life as part of our fight-or-flight response.
Thousands of years ago our threat systems had to be on alert for any incoming or impending dangers. Throughout our evolution, we focus more on whether that sound we heard behind the tall grass was a lion instead of what the cute small cat in front of us is doing, and that makes sense.
We are inclined to want to be prepared for any dangers that may come our way, if we read the headlines, watch the news, and engage in panicked comments on YouTube videos or Reddit threads then we subconsciously think we’re more prepared or more ready to protect ourselves. Even if what you’re watching is an erupting volcano and you live in Kansas.
If you’re wondering what this does to our mental health, it’s not good.
“But what if that lava does make it here?”
A hundred years ago you only knew what your local newspapers showed you, go back further and you only knew what happened in your small town. Today we’re inundated with bad news from all over the world. Social media, the news, and the internet make it incredibly easy to suck you and trigger a threat response in your body.
Unsurprisingly being on high alert for any threats is not the best thing for your body and mental health. Doomscrolling can cause anxiety, high stress, and several studies have found the increase in bad news warps our senses in being able to detect the good news for what it is.
This means the more doomscrolling you do, the more it’s harder for you to realize when news is good and that will make you more pessimistic.
“Yea it’s ice cream but I have to watch all these damn dishes now!”
Next time you find yourself doomscrolling, take a minute and read about some good news, spend some time at the Good News Network to bring you back to happiness. And remember the world isn’t as bad as it appears to be.
Quick Facts
Doomscrolling was named “Word of the Year” for 2020 by the Oxford English Dictionary, wonder what happened that year to make that word relevant…
