Doomscrolling

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A person scrolling through news on a smartphone. Scrolling on phone.jpg
A person scrolling through news on a smartphone.

Doomscrolling or doomsurfing is the act of spending an excessive amount of time reading large quantities of negative news online. [1] [2] Doomscrolling can also be defined as the excessive consumption of vertical, short-form videos for a long period of time, without knowing the amount of time passed. It may leave the person with a feeling of tiredness or unproductiveness after doomscrolling. This phenomenon is most seen in teenagers and kids. [3] This can also be considered as a form of Internet addiction disorder. In 2019, a study by the National Academy of Sciences found that doomscrolling can be linked to a decline in mental and physical health. [4]

Contents

History

Origins

The practice of doomscrolling can be compared to an older phenomenon from the 1970s called the mean world syndrome, described as "the belief that the world is a more dangerous place to live in than it actually is as a result of long-term exposure to violence-related content on television". [5] Studies show that seeing upsetting news leads people to seek out more information on the topic, creating a self-perpetuating cycle. [6]

In common parlance, the word "doom" connotes darkness and evil, referring to one's fate (cf. damnation). [7] In the early online days, "surfing" was a common verb used in reference to browsing the internet; similarly, the word "scrolling" refers to sliding through online content. [7] Though the word "doomscrolling" is not found in their dictionary itself, Merriam-Webster is "watching" the term—a designation for words receiving increased use in society that do not yet meet their criteria for inclusion. [2] Dictionary.com chose it as the top monthly trend in August 2020. [8] The Macquarie Dictionary named doomscrolling as the 2020 Committee's Choice Word of the Year. [9]

Popularity

The term gained popularity in the early 2020s [1] [10] through events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the George Floyd protests, the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine since 2022, [11] all of which have been noted to have exacerbated the practice of doomscrolling. [7] [12] [13]

Doomscrolling became widespread among users of Twitter (Currently known as X) during the COVID-19 pandemic, [14] and has also been discussed in relation to the climate crisis. [15]

Explanations

Negativity bias

The act of doomscrolling can be attributed to the natural negativity bias people have when consuming information. [10] Negativity bias is the idea that negative events have a larger impact on one's mental well-being than good ones. [16] Jeffrey Hall, a professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, notes that due to an individual's regular state of contentment, potential threats provoke one's attention. [17]  One psychiatrist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center notes that humans are "all hardwired to see the negative and be drawn to the negative because it can harm [them] physically." [18] He cites evolution as the reason for why humans seek out such negatives: if one's ancestors, for example, discovered how an ancient creature could injure them, they could avoid that fate. [19]

As opposed to primitive humans, however, most people in modern times do not realize that they are even seeking negative information. Social media algorithms heed the content users engage in and display posts similar in nature, which can aid in the act of doomscrolling. [17] As per the clinic director of the Perelman School of Medicine's Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety: "People have a question, they want an answer, and assume getting it will make them feel better... You keep scrolling and scrolling. Many think that will be helpful, but they end up feeling worse afterward." [19]

Brain anatomy

Doomscrolling, the compulsion to engross oneself in negative news, may be the result of an evolutionary mechanism where humans are "wired to screen for and anticipate danger". [20] By frequently monitoring events surrounding negative headlines, staying informed may grant the feeling of being better prepared; however, prolonged scrolling may also lead to worsened mood and mental health as personal fears might seem heightened. [20]

The inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) plays an important role in information processing and integrating new information into beliefs about reality. [20] [21] In the IFG, the brain "selectively filters bad news" when presented with new information as it updates beliefs. [20] When a person engages in doomscrolling, the brain may feel under threat and shut off its "bad news filter" in response. [20]

In a study where researchers manipulated the left IFG using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), patients were more likely to incorporate negative information when updating beliefs. [21] This suggests that the left IFG may be responsible for inhibiting bad news from altering personal beliefs; when participants were presented with favorable information and received TMS, the brain still updated beliefs in response to the positive news. [21] The study also suggests that the brain selectively filters information and updates beliefs in a way that reduces stress and anxiety by processing good news with higher regard (see optimistic bias). [21] Increased doomscrolling exposes the brain to greater quantities of unfavorable news and may restrict the brain's ability to embrace good news and discount bad news; [21] this can result in negative emotions that make one feel anxious, depressed, and isolated. [19]

Health effects

Psychological effects

Health professionals have advised that excessive doomscrolling can negatively impact existing mental health issues. [20] [22] [23] While the overall impact that doomscrolling has on people may vary, [24] it can often make one feel anxious, stressed, fearful, depressed, and isolated. [20]

Research

Professors of psychology at the University of Sussex conducted a study in which participants watched television news consisting of "positive-, neutral-, and negative valenced material". [25] [26] The study revealed that participants who watched the negative news programs showed an increase in anxiety, sadness, and catastrophic tendencies regarding personal worries. [25]

A study conducted by psychology researchers in conjunction with the Huffington Post found that participants who watched three minutes of negative news in the morning were 27% more likely to have reported experiencing a bad day six to eight hours later. [26] Comparatively, the group who watched solutions-focused news stories reported a good day 88% of the time. [26]

News avoidance

Some people have begun coping with the abundance of negative news stories by avoiding news altogether. A study from 2017 to 2022 showed that news avoidance is increasing, and that 38% of people admitted to sometimes or often actively avoiding the news in 2022, up from 29% in 2017. [27] Even some journalists have admitted to avoiding the news; journalist Amanda Ripley wrote that "people producing the news themselves are struggling, and while they aren't likely to admit it, it is warping the coverage." [28] She also identified ways she believes could help fix the problem, such as intentionally adding more hope, agency, and dignity into stories so readers don't feel the helplessness which leads them to tune out entirely. [28]

See also

Related Research Articles

Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety, suspicion, or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself. Paranoia is distinct from phobias, which also involve irrational fear, but usually no blame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cognitive bias</span> Systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment

A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, and irrationality.

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes. The effect is strongest for desired outcomes, for emotionally charged issues, and for deeply entrenched beliefs. Confirmation bias is insuperable for most people, but they can manage it, for example, by education and training in critical thinking skills.

Feelings are subjective self-contained phenomenal experiences. According to the APA Dictionary of Psychology, a feeling is "a self-contained phenomenal experience"; and feelings are "subjective, evaluative, and independent of the sensations, thoughts, or images evoking them". The term feeling is closely related to, but not the same as, emotion. Feeling may for instance refer to the conscious subjective experience of emotions. The study of subjective experiences is called phenomenology. Psychotherapy generally involves a therapist helping a client understand, articulate, and learn to effectively regulate the client's own feelings, and ultimately to take responsibility for the client's experience of the world. Feelings are sometimes held to be characteristic of embodied consciousness.

In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. Cognitive dissonance is typically experienced as psychological stress when persons participate in an action that goes against one or more of those things. According to this theory, when an action or idea is psychologically inconsistent with the other, people do all in their power to change either so that they become consistent. The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief clashing with new information perceived, wherein the individual tries to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort.

In psychology, a mood is an affective state. In contrast to emotions or feelings, moods are less specific, less intense and less likely to be provoked or instantiated by a particular stimulus or event. Moods are typically described as having either a positive or negative valence. In other words, people usually talk about being in a good mood or a bad mood. There are many different factors that influence mood, and these can lead to positive or negative effects on mood.

<i>Schadenfreude</i> Pleasure from the misfortunes of others

Schadenfreude is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, pain, or humiliation of another. It is a borrowed word from German, the English word for it is "epicaricacy", that originated in the 18th century. Schadenfreude has been detected in children as young as 24 months and may be an important social emotion establishing "inequity aversion".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Attitude (psychology)</span> Concept linking cognitive processes to behavior

An attitude "is a summary evaluation of an object of thought. An attitude object can be anything a person discriminates or holds in mind." Attitudes include beliefs (cognition), emotional responses (affect) and behavioral tendencies. In the classical definition an attitude is persistent, while in more contemporary conceptualizations, attitudes may vary depending upon situations, context, or moods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acceptance</span> Persons assent to the reality of a situation

Acceptance in human psychology is a person's assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process or condition that is a fait accompli without attempting to change it or protest it. The concept is close in meaning to acquiescence, derived from the Latin acquiēscere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mean world syndrome</span> Cognitive bias

Mean world syndrome is a proposed cognitive bias wherein people may perceive the world to be more dangerous than it is. This is due to long-term moderate to heavy exposure to violence-related content in mass media. In the early stages of research, mean world syndrome was only discussed as an effect of watching television. However, it became clear that social media platforms also play a major role in the spread of mean world syndrome.

This article is a general timeline of psychology.

Optimism bias is a cognitive bias that causes someone to believe that they themselves are less likely to experience a negative event. It is also known as unrealistic optimism or comparative optimism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ostrich effect</span> Attempt made by investors to avoid negative financial information

The ostrich effect, also known as the ostrich problem, was originally coined by Galai & Sade (2003). The name comes from the common legend that ostriches bury their heads in the sand to avoid danger. This effect is a cognitive bias where people tend to “bury their head in the sand” and avoid potentially negative but useful information, such as feedback on progress, to avoid psychological discomfort.

Valence, also known as hedonic tone, is a characteristic of emotions that determines their emotional affect.

The self-schema refers to a long lasting and stable set of memories that summarize a person's beliefs, experiences and generalizations about the self, in specific behavioral domains. A person may have a self-schema based on any aspect of themselves as a person, including physical characteristics, personality traits and interests, as long as they consider that aspect of their self to be important to their own self-definition. When someone has a schema about themselves they hyper focus on a trait about themselves and believe what they say to themselves about that specific trait. A self schema can be good or bad depending on what that person talks to themselves about and in what kind of tone.

Social comparison bias is the tendency to have feelings of dislike and competitiveness with someone seen as physically, socially, or mentally better than oneself. Social comparison bias or social comparison theory is the idea that individuals determine their own worth based on how they compare to others. The theory was developed in 1954 by psychologist Leon Festinger. This can be compared to social comparison, which is believed to be central to achievement motivation, feelings of injustice, depression, jealousy, and people's willingness to remain in relationships or jobs. The basis of the theory is that people are believed to compete for the best outcome in relation to their peers. For example, one might make a comparison between the low-end department stores they go to frequently and the designer stores of their peers. Such comparisons may evoke feelings of resentment, anger, and envy with their peers. This bias revolves mostly around wealth and social status; it is unconscious and people who make these are largely unaware of them. In most cases, people try to compare themselves to those in their peer group or with whom they are similar.

Experts from many different fields have conducted research and held debates about how using social media affects mental health. Research suggests that mental health issues arising from social media use affect women more than men and vary according to the particular social media platform used, although it does affect every age and gender demographic in different ways. Psychological or behavioural dependence on social media platforms can result in significant negative functions in individuals' daily lives. Studies show there are several negative effects that social media can have on individuals' mental health and overall well-being. While researchers have attempted to examine why and how social media is problematic, they still struggle to develop evidence-based recommendations on how they would go about offering potential solutions to this issue. Because social media is constantly evolving, researchers also struggle with whether the disorder of problematic social media use would be considered a separate clinical entity or a manifestation of underlying psychiatric disorders. These disorders can be diagnosed when an individual engages in online content/conversations rather than pursuing other interests.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fear of missing out</span> Type of social anxiety

Fear of missing out (FOMO) is the feeling of apprehension that one is either not in the know about or missing out on information, events, experiences, or life decisions that could make one's life better. FOMO is also associated with a fear of regret, which may lead to concerns that one might miss an opportunity for social interaction, a novel experience, a memorable event, profitable investment or the comfort of those you love and who love you back. It is characterized by a desire to stay continually connected with what others are doing, and can be described as the fear that deciding not to participate is the wrong choice. FOMO could result from not knowing about a conversation, missing a TV show, not attending a wedding or party, or hearing that others have discovered a new restaurant. FOMO in recent years has been attributed to a number of negative psychological and behavioral symptoms.

Mental illnesses, also known as psychiatric disorders, are often inaccurately portrayed in the media. Films, television programs, books, magazines, and news programs often stereotype the mentally ill as being violent, unpredictable, or dangerous, unlike the great majority of those who experience mental illness. As media is often the primary way people are exposed to mental illnesses, when portrayals are inaccurate, they further perpetuate stereotypes, stigma, and discriminatory behavior. When the public stigmatizes the mentally ill, people with mental illnesses become less likely to seek treatment or support for fear of being judged or rejected by the public. However, with proper support, not only are most of those with psychiatric disorders able to function adequately in society, but many are able to work successfully and make substantial contributions to society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tracy Dennis-Tiwary</span> American Female Clinical Psychologist

Tracy Dennis-Tiwary is an American clinical psychologist, author, health technology entrepreneur, and professor of psychology and neuroscience at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of The City University of New York. Her research explores emotion regulation and its role in mental health and illness, with a particular focus on anxiety and anxiety-related attention biases, as well as child emotional development. She is known for her nuanced view of the impact of digital technology and social media on psychological well-being in youth and adults, including adjustment, relationship quality, anxiety, and emotion regulation.

References

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