Remember the good old Internet days of memes and YouTube fails? They were just a few months ago but it feels like a lifetime since we’ve replaced our feeds with nothing but gloomy news. Staying informed is one thing, but spending all night and morning in bed hitting refresh for the next COVID update or viral protest video is another. That’s just straight-up “doomscrolling.”
Experts say we have our primal instincts to blame for binge-watching dreary news stories. Clinical psychology professor Mary McNaughton-Cassill says our brains have evolved to constantly seek threats and “that’s why we seem predisposed to pay more attention to negative than positive things.” It’s not that bad news is our kink, it’s our mind “scanning for danger.”
You might not love your ‘fight or flight’ response being stuck on, but social media does.David Jay of theCenter for Humane Technologysays their “algorithms are designed to take and amplify whatever emotions will keep us watching, especially negative emotions. And that can have a real negative impact on people’s mental health.” They want you to feel like you need to be locked in to keep yourself and your family safe because that means more “time spent on app” and more revenue-generating ads they can send you.
- And think about this:The more you interact online, the more they learn about you, and the better they are at curating your literally infinite feed. But instead of trying to reach the end of Facebook, try shutting down, logging off, and limiting your scroll time tomorrow. Your anxiety levels will thank you.
Source:WSJ