Doomscrolling will destroy your mental health
Unlike more traditional forms of media, social media never ends and many of us have fallen into the trap of relentlessly trawling for Covid-related news at the expense of our psychological wellbeing. Claire O’Mahony examines the phenomenon
It’s something that most of us have experienced in the last year: an inability to stop reading the latest on Covid-19, even though it’s making us feel terrible. Doomscrolling, defined as the tendency to scroll or read through bad news that news is saddening or depressing, first entered the lexicon around 2018, but it’s taken on a new significance during the pandemic. We are consuming Covid-related coverage on our social media feeds and news sites in what has become an almost obsessive-like quest to learn all we can about the virus that pressed pause on the world. This subjection to negative news, of which there’s no shortage, is exhausting and it can leave us feeling anxious, agitated and even hopeless. And yet we continue to doomscroll.
There are several factors driving this behaviour and one is that we’ve evolved to be on the lookout for danger. “There’s a biological reason for it in terms of our ancient ancestors, who were much more likely to look out for information that was a threat to them than other sorts of information,” says Dr Vincent Mc Darby, clinical psychologist and president-elect of the Psychology Society of Ireland. “Anxiety is related to a lack of control and a lack of predictability when we’re not sure what’s going to happen in particular situations. If you look at the example of Covid, there’s huge anxiety across the board, and not just anxiety about Covid, but anxiety in relation to what it’s done to change our day-today lives. Our baseline anxiety is particularly high for most people and the research coming in is showing that. When we’re anxious, we’ll seek to engage in behaviours that reduce anxiety and one is that we information-seek.” However, doomscrolling isn’t giving us the reassurance that we so badly want because there are no clear-cut answers to questions like when will be pandemic end or what does the emergence of new variants mean. “We’re trying to draw in information
that will help give us certainty because when we have more certainty our anxiety reduces, but what we’re actually getting is more and more uncertainty,” says Dr Mc Darby. “The more information we get, the more negative information we get and the more contradictory information we get. So what we’re actually doing to reduce to anxiety is increasing our anxiety, particularly in relation to social media.”
Checking our phones has become habitual and in terms of online news consumption, algorithms are delivering to us what they think we want: doomscrolling brings more negative news in our feeds. “What we need to be increasingly aware of with social media is that it’s actually being tailored to you,” says Martin Rogan, CEO of Mental Health Ireland. “The more you doomscroll, the darker it gets. It’s as if you developed an appetite for this and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
It’s also very difficult to detach from news feeds because there’s no closure to them. “Unlike a newspaper, you can get to the end of a story, you can get to the end of a newspaper,” says Dr Mc Darby. “You can’t in social media. It’s there, it’s continually ongoing and the scrolling never ends.”
But this continual diet of harsh messaging is not good for our health. A UK cross-sectional study across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland last year found that higher media consumption during lockdown was associated with higher levels of anxiety and depression. Physically, the biological response to stress, the flight or fight response is triggered as the body prepares itself for mobilisation.
“We can get stuck in the flight or fight response and that affects the whole system, our physical, emotional and mental psychological well-being,” says psychotherapist Jane Gribbin, an accredited member of the Irish Association of Humanistic & Integrative Psychotherapy.
“If people don’t address their stress levels, they can become very unwell and develop heart problems and high blood pressure.” Anxiety is also linked to other mental health problems including depression. While a correlation has been established between heavy social media use and mood disorders, research is unclear as to whether or not social media is the cause. “The question is, does doomscrolling cause anxiety and depression? Or are people who are anxious or depressed more likely to doomscroll and we don’t know,” says Dr Mc Darby.
There can be other consequences, too. “If you continually expose yourself to graphic stuff, frightening stuff, overwhelming stuff, you basically lose your compassion and not only do you lose compassion for other people but you lose compassion for yourself, too,” says Rogan. “When you’re continually exposed you get what’s known as moral injury and moral injury is where you lose that ability to respond in a humanistic way.” He adds: “If you gravitate towards negativity, it becomes your stance and how you approach the world generally.”
Given that we can’t change the current nature of the news and that bad news is always at our fingertips thanks to our reliance on devices, the experts suggest the following to manage our doomscrolling.
Set aside time for news
You don’t have to entirely disconnect from social media and stop reading the news. Our current situation necessitates that we know about staying within our 5km radius or when we might be in line for a vaccine. “It is important at a time of huge public health concern that people are well informed. What we are encouraging people to do is to manage their consumption and check in, probably twice a day and where they check it, make it reliable sources like mainstream media whether print or broadcast or the online versions of it. If they find themselves being drawn back, try and select some other item,” says Rogan.
Jane Gribbin advises choosing the time of the day when you engage with news wisely. For example, morning may not be the best time. “It’s going to set the tone of your day, it’s not helpful, it’s not going to achieve anything and it’s going to really impact on the quality of your life. You want to give yourself the best chance to start your day in a way that’s going to be supportive and validating and give you the motivation to engage with the day.” Last thing at night ,a common time for doom scrolling, can also be problematic.
“If you’re hooked into your social media right up to the last minute until you go to bed, you’re going to be totally wired,” says Gribbin. She suggests adopting an alternative routine. “Say to yourself, I’m going give myself an hour to unwind at nighttime, it might be time to cleanse my face and take my time with all of that. Maybe I’ll read something light or something that might be inspiring. It might be doing a bit of writing and journaling about how your day has been, and if you’re in a very stressful environment, seeing if anything is hanging over you and putting it on paper so that you’re not going to bed with all of this stuff in your mind.” Dr Mc Darby advises putting a time limit on your scrolling. “Tell yourself, I’m going to go here, I may go down the rabbit hole but I’m giving myself half an hour, an hour or whatever you decide or designate it to a time of day so that you’re not going to be constantly on the phone all the time,” he says.
Know what you’re looking for
There can often be a mindless element to doomscrolling and this isn’t helpful if your primary goal is to stay more informed. “If you’re looking for news, look for the Covid-19 death rate in Ireland or whatever it might be so you’ve got a specific path for that information. Go, get that, job done and move on instead of scrolling through everything negative,” advises Dr Mc Darby.
Examine where you’re getting your information from
According to Rogan, in our normal world, we interact with more people and have a much broader range of input to sample and consider. “By virtue of Level 5 and social distancing, we’ve had to narrow those channels so it does leave us particularly vulnerable to swallowing messages whole rather than going off and assembling different pieces and putting them together and doing our own analysis,” he says. That means we need to be vigilant about the sources of any information we take on board. “If you’re going out for a meal, you’d want to know where it came from. We need to consume media with the same caution,” says
Rogan. “You’re actually taking that into your system and it’s influencing how you think and your beliefs. You need to make sure of the source and that it’s coming from a good place. What’s its intention? Why is it telling me this? Sometimes that’s easy to extricate and sometimes it’s not.”
Don’t just skim the headlines
The word ‘scrolling’ indicates something that’s done at a fast pace and which doesn’t allow for any complexities to be explored. Longer reads may prove to be more informative and less distressing. “Because we live in a world of clickbait, we tend to scroll through headlines rather than content. Read the news, rather than just the headlines,” advises Dr Mc Darby. “Headlines are usually dramatised andtendtobemuch more doomsaying than the article.”
‘If you continually expose yourself to graphic stuff, you basically lose your compassion and not only do you lose compassion for other people but you lose compassion for yourself, too’
‘If you were to do one single thing that’s good for your mental health, then it’s to do something for someone else’
Practise present moment awareness
Your thoughts are not your reality.
By focusing on something negative and by feeding it, as we do when doomscrolling, these thoughts start to gain momentum to the point where we can feel the physical effects of being anxious. At a time when so many people are presenting with anxiety, Gribbin suggests to clients that they try to connect with the here and now. “A good way to do that is to get out in nature and to consciously lose your senses to engage with what you’re seeing, hearing, sensing and feeling. Using your eyes — what colour are the trees? What colour is the sky, can you see clouds and hear birds?” she says. “So many people are so stuck in their head. We have to develop resources to manage that and one of the resources is to practise present moment awareness, breathing and consciously becoming aware of your breath and grounding yourself with your senses.”
Focus on what you can control
Worried about the economy? Concerned about what the long-term effects of children being out of school will be? “A lot of the time we distract ourselves with stuff that we have no influence on whatsoever, says Rogan. “Focus on stuff you can influence and that you can interact with and have control over.” You have no direct impact on how long the pandemic will last or how others behave, but what is within your powers are things like staying in touch with family and friends; limiting social media and wearing your mask, social distancing and hand washing.
Check in with yourself and with others
The Covid-19 situation can challenge mental health and the Mental Health Ireland website mentalhealthireland.ie has evidence-based practical options that can be used by people or recommended to a friend or family member. These include the ‘five ways of well-being’ set of actions which include keep learning; stay active; be curious, and connect with others. Another important pillar of well-being is to give. “If you were to do one single thing that’s good for your mental health, it’s to do something for someone else,” says Rogan. That could be volunteering your time, or donating to charity. “Something that you don’t have an expectation of return but it gives you a boost because we’re designed to be part of a tribe and that’s how we acknowledge and reciprocate with the tribe,” he says.