Why Can't We Stop Doomscrolling?

Let me paint this scene and let me know if it sounds familiar to you. You pop on to the computer or the phone intending for a quick youtube search for how to do something. While you are there, you get sucked into videos that are yelling headlines at you that prey on your emotions. You find yourself 2 hours later having watched five or six youtube videos. Maybe you watched one related to your original question, but you were quickly drawn away into other distractions.

We’re bombarded with distractions and attention driving headlines from every angle—climate change, political tensions, violence, celebrity gossip, economic uncertainty, and the next health crisis. There’s always something to learn. We get lulled into a false sense of obligation to keep up with the world. We feel like we’re being so productive. Learning so much.

But we find weeks and months later we still haven’t done many things we were meaning to start. And the more time we spend here the more disconnected we actually are from the immediate world around us.

Spending this much time online, obsessing over the latest news and trends, is taking a toll on our mental health. Endless scrolling isn’t just a habit; it’s a coping mechanism for anxiety or unpleasant emotions like depression, loneliness, and boredom. Think back to a time recently where you felt overwhelmed by anything. Could be the state of the world or just something going on in your life. What do you do?

Most of us turn to screens to squash these emotions. We pick up the phone and scroll, pick up the Netflix remote. We search for a way to numb the discomfort, but oftentimes this behavior makes these feelings worse.

To make things worse: the most profitable companies in the world have financial incentive to keep you glued to a screen. The attention economy—the system built to keep you stuck there—is worth a staggering $853 billion dollars. This didn’t happen by accident; it’s a massive machine engineered to capitalize on your emotions and keep you hooked.

The irony is, the more you stay hooked in, the worse you feel. Avoiding your emotions by doom-scrolling doesn’t ease your anxiety; it feeds it. You end up in a downward spiral, stuck in bed all day on Reddit or bouncing between apps, feeling more drained and disconnected than ever.

One day I had a profound realization. This was after I decided to shut off the firehose of news and big headlines for a period of 30 days. The amount of time you need a day to keep up with current events is 10 minutes or less.

Many of us jump on social media to check in on how things are going in the world. But it keeps us stuck there because apps are incentivized to get you to click on the next thing.

Here’s what I’d recommend: if you care about staying up on current events: join a newsletter that summarizes your news. This allows you to have the big take-aways from a short period of time. Then stop and move on with your day.

Alternatively, give yourself permission to get some distance from current events for a while. Take a break from the news and potentially social media all together. It’s OK to leave it alone - it’s not going anywhere without you.

I did this experiment where I spent a month without any social media. You know what happened when something big happened? People would tell me. People in my life in the real world. I didn’t need to seek it out.

Before I had the misconception that to be a good citizen I needed to spend hours anguishing over news that was happening in the world that concerned me. But how much is it benefiting me to spend hours of my life focused there?

I started to learn a new definition for the word suffering, which meant I was living my life in a constant spiral of worrying about what had happened or what would happen.

Suffering is when we’re stuck in a loop, constantly living in the past or future, worrying about things we can’t control. It’s that mental treadmill where we’re either replaying past events or anxiously anticipating future ones.

The reason people get so stuck consistently in a doomscroll and online is because they are stuck in their suffering. When you are conscious of this, you notice it everywhere. And we try to stifle our uncomfortable emotions with screen usage. But it just makes it worse or pushes it down for later: which can wreck havoc on our mental health.

But here’s the good news - we can break this cycle. I have an exercise for you to try so you can feel it for yourself. It’s simple, but powerful.

For the next 30 seconds: focus on nothing but your breath.

Notice if you are tempted to scroll away to another article or click away. Notice it, but don’t go anywhere. Give yourself this 30 seconds. You can do it.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

How’d you do? I’d encourage you to really take this 30 seconds for yourself.

It might seem small and insignificant but the more often you can bring time of self awareness to your life, the bigger impact it’ll have on you.

You don’t need anyone to tell you how to do this, make it a habit. Listen to yourself and start with a little bit every day.

You don’t have to be plugged into the world’s pain 24/7 to be an informed or caring person. Take care of yourself and your mental health.

The more you can show up for yourself and invest in giving your brain time to rest: the more you find energy that you didn’t think you had.

That energy, in turn, can be given in attention and love to others in your life who are the most important to you. This will have more impact than scrolling your newsfeed ever will.