Why We Can’t Stop Scrolling Bad News
Have you ever opened your phone to check one message and ended up scrolling through project headlines and negative updates for half an hour? This behaviour is called doomscrolling, and it’s far more common. The psychology of doom-scrolling has directly explained why our brains are naturally drawn towards negative information and why doomscrolling is addictive when it makes us feel words where they describe, understanding this pattern, which is the first step towards breaking free.
What Is Doomscrolling?
Doomscrolling mainly refers to the habit of continuously consuming negative news online, particularly through social media platforms. These things particularly include reading about global conflicts, economic instability, and social harassment, which is an endless loop. Although the content increases the stress and anxiety people feel compared to scrolling, it is because their brains interpret information as important for survival.
The Psychology of Doomscrolling
At the core of the psychology of doomscrolling is the negative bias in the brain, where there is a tendency to focus more on threats than on positive information. These biases help early humans to survive by keeping them alert to danger. However, in the digital era, the same mechanism has made us hyper-aware of online threads that we cannot directly influence. Every alarming headline activates the threat system in the brain, where it triggers stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. This place in the nervous system is a mild fight or flight state, where it creates the urge to gather more information to feel safe. As a result, people scroll more not because they enjoy the content but because their brains try to reduce uncertainty.
Why Is Doomscrolling Addictive?
The majority of people wonder why doomscrolling is addictive in nature because it clearly causes discomfort. The answer primarily lies in how social media platforms interact with our brain chemistry. The first platform operates on a variable reward system, which is quite similar to slot machines. Each scroll might reveal something shocking or informative. This unpredictability has directly released dopamine, which is the brain’s motivation, and reinforces the habit. Secondly, doomscrolling directly creates an illusion of control, where in the world it is uncertain. Staying constantly updated gives people a sense of preparedness. Unfortunately, this sense of control is temporary,y and social media creates anxiety, which affects the brain. Finally, it has been observed that anxiety itself strengthens the loop where doomscrolling has directly raised anxiety levels, as it pushes people to seek more information.
The Link Between Doomscrolling and Social Media Anxiety Behaviour
Social media anxiety behaviour refers to the tendencies in which people use digital platforms in an attempt to reduce emotional distress, although the interaction process only leads to heightened disturbance of the distress and not cessation of the distress. An example of this is doomscrolling. Instead of reducing the stress, further scrolling exposes users to a flood of information with threats, therefore, keeping the autonomic nervous system in high arousal, which blocks any emotional recovery.
These dynamics eventually lead to cumulative emotional exhaustion, disruptions of sleep structure, irritability, loss of attention, and an all-consuming feeling of powerlessness, as well as social media anxiety. Habituation is a maladaptively sensitised neural circuitry that is the result of unrelenting sensory input and ends in decreased propensity to self-regulation.
Indicators You could be Doomscrolling
The person who finds themselves unable to resist the urge to check their news feeds on occasions when they feel bored or anxious, who finds themselves scrolling regardless of noticing the worsening mood, or who finds themselves out of the experience feeling more tense, hypervigilant, or even emotionally drained, is likely to be participating in a doomscrolling habit. The recognition of such indicators makes adaptive change introduction possible.
How to Reduce Doomscrolling
Doomscrolling does not require full withdrawal from social media to reduce it. Rather, it needs to be structured through the creation of boundaries. Among the effective interventions, one can single out an identification of affective triggers, such as stress, loneliness, or ennui, and the application of non-digital coping modalities, controlled respiration, ambulation, or interpersonal dialogue.
An additional strategy involves the creation of friction through the blocking of real-time news notifications or by moving news apps to the edges of the device window. The resultant latency gives the conscious mind a chance to anticipate the escalation of the habit. There is a consequential significance to curating one’s feed. By carefully choosing accounts where educational, creative, or relaxing material is promulgated, it is possible to change the digital environment from one of threat to one of positive support.
Conclusion: A Nicer Way to Use Technology
The mental assumptions of the psychology of doomscrolling prove the behaviour to be not a personal character insult but a biological response to a perceived threat, enhanced with the help of digital technology. The understanding of the addictiveness of doomscrolling subdues guilt and develops awareness. With the re-dialectic of our engagement with social media, it becomes possible both to lessen anxiety linked with the consumption of digital material and to create a more beneficial information climate, preserving not only attentional resources but also inner peace.
