In the age of Tiktok, Instagram, and 24/7 news updates, it’s easy to find yourself stuck in a cycle of doomscrolling — endlessly consuming bad news, negative posts, or even emotionally draining content. It might feel productive, good even to stay informed, but at what cost to your mental health?
But why is doomscrolling harmful?
- Sleep Disruption: One of the main direct effects of doomscrolling would be the progressive lack of sleep it induces. Scrolling before bed keeps your mind racing, and due to social media’s short video features, it’s easy to lose track of time or disregard it completely when on your phone. This makes it harder to wind down and get quality sleep.
- Increased Anxiety: Constant exposure to distressing, depressing, or disturbing news heightens feelings of worry and helplessness, especially during global crises. As we know anxiety leads to a multitude of other health issues, from small issues like digestion disruptions, to more serious ones like heart issues.
- Mental Exhaustion: Absorbing endless negativity drains your emotional energy, leaving you too burned out to focus on things happening in your bubble.
- Skewed Worldview: By consuming mainly bad news, you might start believing the world is far worse than it actually is, or worse you become desensitized to things that should not be normalized.
So then how do we break the cycle?
By setting time limits on our social media, and curating our feed for more positive content, we can decrease the negativity we see, and balance out our media. Content from cute animals, mental health advocates, or adventurous stories can shift your mindset. In addition to this, you can also replace scrolling with mindful activities. Get active. Go outside. Do some journaling. Play with your dog. Remember, you control your feed – it doesn’t control you.
Contributed by: Lee Frances