Doomscrolling: How to Break the Cycle
Are you doomscrolling? I am. I just can't help myself. When I find a few minutes between meetings, or when I'm transitioning between tasks, I often use that time to quickly scan and scroll through the news headlines on my phone. There's no breaking news from the last time I checked, 45 minutes ago. And even when there is a new story, it's really just a variation of something I read earlier that day. I know I'm doing it, and not benefiting from it, but I struggle to change my behavior.
Does that sound familiar to you? If so, you're probably doomscrolling too.
But why are so many of us stuck in a cycle of pursuing depressing, stressful, or painful news? There are two powerful forces coming into play. First is our primal instinct to scan our environment for danger and the other is the rise of the attention economy.
We have ancient brains in a modern, high-tech world. Our brains are hardwired to be on the lookout for and assess threats to our safety and wellbeing. During this constant and vigilant scanning of the environment, our brains are processing a ton of information. But that information isn’t all created equal. We pay more attention to negative things than positive and danger is classified as more important to our brains because our survival used to depend on it.
When we’re in comfortable, familiar environments, our brains relax and we feel safe. When we’re in new environments we tend to feel less certain. That uncertainty often triggers some level of anxiety or stress, which again used to be imperative for our survival. Our brains start to search for more information to help regain control of the situation and our surroundings.
The hardwiring in our brain is still useful for survival today. There are physical dangers and various threats that need to be navigated and require our primal instincts. But our brains aren’t always very discerning when scanning our environment. Uncertainty is uncertainty, whether it’s getting a little lost in the woods or hearing conflicting information about whether COVID-19 cases are rising or falling. It produces the same result - the search for more information to gain clarity and control.
And when that search starts, it can become incredibly difficult to break away from what seems to be a never-ending newsfeed. It’s a perfect storm for slipping into a doomscrolling vortex.
If like me, you occasionally find yourself doomscrolling and you’re not sure how to find your way out, here are a few ways you might break free.
Raise your awareness. Be conscious and intentional about when you’re reading, watching or listening to the news. Check-in with yourself and ask if you really want to read or hear more. If it’s not an easy yes, or you notice that you’re starting to feel sad, angry or anxious, take a break and do something else.
Get in touch with the purpose or goal. What are you trying to get out of your news intake? Is it just the basic updates from the day? Is there a particular topic that’s very important to you? Do you want a national news recap or are you actually looking for local, community information? When your purpose or goal is clear, it’s easier to notice when you get sidetracked.
Set some boundaries. How much time do you need to get your news? How often do you want to be checking the news? In what way do you want to receive info? Remember, in our attention economy, websites, podcasts, and TV stations are all trying to grab and keep our attention for as long as possible. Without boundaries, it can be challenging to limit our news intake (in fact, these platforms are counting on it!).
And finally...
Avoid shaming yourself into change. You’re the boss. If you don’t want to stop doomscrolling, no one can make you. When I notice that guilt is my primary motivation for pulling myself away from my newsfeed, I try to recenter on what I want to be doing instead of endlessly scrolling through the news.
Looking for more? Check out our most recent podcast where we discuss the rise of doomscrolling, our experiences with it and more ideas about how to break the cycle of endless news scrolling.
