The darkly soothing compulsion of 'doomscrolling'

• People want to take a constant dose of the emotion they are feeling (anger, despair, anxiety) as a way to program their coping mechanism, as being in a high-alert position is useful in times of danger.
• Others are drawn towards the negativity, as they endlessly browse through the comment section where verbal brawls are common.
• Due to heightened emotions, people scroll way past their need for valuable information, getting inside a negative spiral of stories and images that stimulate and expand on their mental state.

A survey conducted in Germany revealed that media exposure frequency, duration and diversity showed a sharp spike during a global crisis and that led to increased depression symptoms and anxiety.

Phone usage (beyond the normal 1 to 2 hours a day) has already been linked to anxiety, depression and a sedentary lifestyle which then leads to various diseases.

.. or GAD is when all the news and information make a bed inside your head and make it like a huge twitter feed of worries. Symptoms include muscle tensions, fatigue and depression. Doom Scrollers have similar, undiagnosed effects.

When we doom scroll, we are in a way practising for having GAD, just like running everyday changes our muscles, doomscrolling everyday changes our brain and psychology.

Doom scrolling is similar to gambling behaviour, as we scroll to find anything uplifting too, hooked on the expectation of seeing something good.

Just like a gambler keeps pulling the lever of a slot machine, we keep thumbing upwards to scroll through the newsfeeds.

Possible ways to stop or minimize doom scrolling can be:

1. Keep a track of how much time you spend on social media doing nothing, identifying the negative frequency.
2. Set a timer or use the inbuilt apps to close the doomscrolling feeds.
3. Establish a time to put your phone away at the end of the day, or to turn it off whenever possible.
4. Support others to move away from their phones, and go see the real world.