- 30/08/2021
- Category: Commentaries
You’re in your bed. It’s 1 AM. But you’re not asleep. Chances are, you’re still endlessly scrolling through your preferred social media app, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, or Tiktok. But why? Aren’t you tired from all the Zoom meetings and work that you’ve done throughout the day? Why are you still on your phone, endlessly scrolling, without a single feeling of tiredness? If you had the choice to sleep or endlessly scroll through your phone, you’d probably choose to sleep, no? So why are you still awake, glued to your phone, without realising that time is ever so slowly slipping away unbeknownst to you? When will this doomscrolling end?
But first, doomscrolling is mindlessly scrolling through negative news articles, social media posts, or other content-sharing platforms. Basically, it could be defined as reading one negative news after another or endlessly scrolling through a never-ending stream of content. Hence, doom.[1] Additionally, you may think that your doomscrolling and its consequences are caused by your own actions. But what if it’s not? What if our social media, which we are so addicted to, are engineered to keep ourselves glued with its never-ending content catered to ourselves? This article seeks to explain how doomscrolling is a result of both our behavior and the design of social media itself, resulting in an addiction. It is also worth noting that the pandemic further amplifies this addiction. How so?
How does doomscrolling happen?
Over the course of the pandemic, our lives have drastically changed. Our old ways of communicating and socialising required to be in the presence of someone are no longer viable options. We are now forced to opt through online means to conduct these actions. Be it work, school, or merely hanging out with friends, are now all conducted via online platforms. Which means that it requires us to be within the presence of the internet for far longer than we used to. If the internet was once used merely as a form of escape from our daily life activities such as work and school as well as to support some activities, it has now become our primary tool in conducting our daily lives. Therefore, the line between the ‘real’ world and the ‘digital’ world are blurred and intersecting between one another. Where there was once a physical separation between the two, it is now no longer existent. Due to this, doomscrolling became a common phenomenon during the pandemic. Without real world escapism, we resort to online escapisms too.
But how much is this entirely within our control? And how much isn’t?
While it may come as no surprise that social media platforms are engineered to keep us interested for as long as possible,[2] research during the pandemic has discovered that doomscrolling is not necessarily a byproduct of these social media platforms. Meaning, doomscrolling is contributed by none other than ourselves. Bekalu notes that as humans we have a ‘natural’ tendency to pay more attention to negative news[3]. Which means that we humans are generally hardwired to keep looking and seeking for negative news, unbeknownst to ourselves. Understanding this, social media platforms exploit this ‘natural’ state of humans to draw in more users and make them stay longer. Their algorithms are designed to entice us in many ways possible. One of them being by creating an echo chamber of our preferred type of content. So this means, no matter what kind of content each of us prefers, our social media platforms know it well and will constantly feed the content catered to us. If we constantly seek negative types of content in our social media platforms, such as, but not limited to, the number of daily COVID-19 death cases, economic recession, hoaxes regarding the pandemic and much more[4], then that is the content that we will most likely see often, which then entices us, leading us to ‘doom’ ourselves. Imagine this as a vicious cycle of sorts. If you start seeking negative content then these social media platforms will feed you more and more, understanding that this is the content that you prefer the most. Even if you choose to seek positive types of content, the algorithm will still cater to said preferences and will still entice you to stay. So even if you choose positive content, you are most likely still doomed.
But how much of this actually affects us?
More than you know it. The pandemic has shown us how exhausting it can be to constantly be online. With new phrases such as Zoom Fatigue as the primary example of how overbearing constantly being online can be. It taxes our mental health more than we realise. Simply put, being always online burns us out.[5] If we take in the fact that prior to all of this, we use the internet as a means of escape for either our work or school, it becomes more taxing for us now that what was once a tool of escape, is a tool of our demise. Now, we end the day as we start the day, staring through our screens. In the morning we may be catching up on our emails, and at night we’re still endlessly scrolling through our phones hoping to get a bit of the escapism that we once had. This distortion of separation is what makes doomscrolling more prevalent and makes us more susceptible to the negative effects of it, which are many.[6] We all experience different effects of doomscrolling and online burnouts, but the common issue is that it gives us a lack of sleep. Mindlessly and endlessly scrolling through as our time slips away without realising, results in a general lack of sleep. Tiredness, no energy, feeling lethargic, are a few examples of what we may feel due to the effects of doomscrolling.
So what can we do?
The tone of this article may make it seem that doomscrolling is an inevitable demise that we will all go through. But fret not, there is still light at the end of this online tunnel. There is still a way to regain ourselves and avoid the effects of doomscrolling. Here are a few of them.
- Disconnect to reconnect
We have been so caught up with connecting with other people that we forget to connect with someone that is more important to us: ourselves. It is okay to take breaks, that’s what weekends are for! There is no shame in not responding to text messages on a weekend, especially ones coming from work or school. We all need a minute to ourselves after all that has happened during the week. Put the phone down, it won’t hurt. Pick up a new hobby! Anything that disconnects you from the internet and reconnects you with yourself, works!
- Limit yourself
Our gadgets are tools, in which they serve us and not the other way around. Besides for work, we should limit ourselves to the amount of time that we spend on our gadgets. There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of social media here and there, the problem becomes when there’s too much of it. Most of our social media platforms are designed to spoon feed us content and we fall for it. When we start with one video, it is merely a click away from another one. So we must limit ourselves. Allocate a fixed amount of time that we can use for social media in a day. There are many ways of doing this, either through an app on our phone or manually counting the minutes. The idea is to ensure that we spend no more than the fixed amount of time allocated for social media or surfing the web on weekdays. Time spent on social media can be used as time spent for resting or doing other activities that don’t require the internet!
- Get Help
There is no shame in getting help. The pandemic has made us all feel tired in one way or another. If we feel like we still can’t limit ourselves or disconnect from using the internet, then it is okay to seek help. Whether it’s professional help or simply having someone take your gadgets away from you, both work as long as you’re willing to seek help yourself.
All in all, doomscrolling is a phenomenon that is here to stay. It’s inevitable because of the situation that we are all currently living in. Our world has become online, yet our minds can not take the toll of constantly being online. Balance is the key. But how to obtain this balance is entirely up to us. So, what will you do?
Author: Perdana Karim
Editor: Hedira Witri Hadayani
[1] Depoux, A. et al. (2020) ‘The pandemic of social media panic travels faster than the COVID-19 outbreak’, Journal of Travel Medicine, 27(3). doi: 10.1093/jtm/taaa031.
[2] Grau, S., Kleiser, S. and Bright, L. (2019) ‘Exploring social media addiction among student Millennials’, Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 22(2), pp. 200–216. doi: 10.1108/QMR-02-2017-0058.
[3] Bekalu, M. A. et al. (2021) ‘Association of social participation, perception of neighborhood social cohesion, and social media use with happiness: Evidence of trade-off (JCOP-20-277)’, Journal of Community Psychology, 49(2), pp. 432–446. doi: 10.1002/jcop.22469.
[4] Watercutter, A. (2020) ‘Doomscrolling Is Slowly Eroding Your Mental Health’, Wired, 25 June. Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/stop-doomscrolling/ (Accessed: 13 August 2021).
[5] Mheidly, N., Fares, M. Y. and Fares, J. (2020) ‘Coping With Stress and Burnout Associated With Telecommunication and Online Learning’, Frontiers in Public Health, 8, p. 672. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.574969.
[6] Paulsen, P. and Fuller, D. (2020) ‘Scrolling for data or doom during COVID-19?’, Canadian Journal of Public Health, 111(4), pp. 490–491. doi: 10.17269/s41997-020-00376-5.
