THere you may have noticed, no shortage of bad news lately. The wars rumble, the lower markets, the ice caps withdraw.
Some of us react in a way that feels almost instinctive – we reach our phones, we update ourselves late at night, we absorb new details. The habit has acquired a name: Doomscrolling.
Invented during the pandemic, when new crises seemed to take place on time, the term describes the constraint of browsing dark titles endless on social networks.
So why do bad news have such a catch on us? And how can we loosen it?
An evolution oddity
Basically, condemnation seems to exploit a quirk of human psychology – our integrated bias for negativity.
Evolutionary, being alive To danger helped our ancestors survive. When the first humans traveled the African savannah, those who are attentive to potential threats – say, the rustle of a predator in the undergrowth – had a better chance of survival. A false positive (panic in the wind) was preferable to a false negative (ignoring a lion).
Journalists have long understood this trend. “If he bleeds, he leads,” directs the old adage in the editorial room, born from the intuition according to which the stories of bloodshed and calamity change more papers than good news could never.
In the digital age, the “lion in the grass” which diverts our attention could be a lurid article on war, recession or ecological collapse. Individuals with high levels of neuroticism – a hereditary personality trait – seem particularly vulnerable, explains Professor Christopher Ferguson of the University of Stetson. The same goes for those who have low tolerance for uncertainty, who are looking for definitive answers in a chaotic world.
Could the bad news feed poor health?
Scientists study if the competition causes chronic and low -grade inflammation
Getty images
Doomscrolling looks like rumination – repetitive and unproductive residence on dark thoughts. Science is still emerging, but some studies suggest a link between Use and depression of heavy social mediaAnxiety and satisfaction of lower life. Whether it is the scrolling that low moods or people who already feel unhappy have tend to spend more time online is not clear. Many researchers suspect that it is a bit of both, but if the contest of the challenge deprives you of sleep, it is unlikely that it will improve your state of mind.
The effects can also be physical. Dr. Dan Nicolau of King’s College of London, a survey to find out if the compulsive consumption of bad news sets up the body’s immune system for a battle that never comes. The first results suggest links between heavy use of social media and high levels of reactive protein C, a marker of inflammation found in the blood.
Inflammation, in small doses, can be a good thing. It helps to fight against infection and repair of injuries. If you are about to compete with a large cat, it is logical that your body is prepared.
However, in the modern world – seated on a sofa, condemning disasters – this former defense mechanism can be a failure.
Nicolau suspects that the competition can lead the body to accelerate for a physical trauma that never happens, causing chronic inflammation of low grade – the physiological equivalent of sleep in your boots for a war which is always just on the horizon. This kind of low -grade broody inflammation has been linked to a multitude of diseases, Alzheimer’s to arthritis.
Meanwhile, conditions such as depression and schizophrenia, long supposed to be purely neurological, are now considered as inflammatory components. The question of whether inflammation helps to cause these diseases or simply accompanies them is not clear, but both are more and more difficult to separate.
How to stop scrolling?
Dependence, says Nicolau, is often as much anticipation as consumption.
For an alcoholic and stimulating mood hormonal will increase before the first sip, he explained. The simple fact of being exposed to certain environmental clues – say, the tingling of glasses – can lead these responses of pleasure near their cutting -edge levels.
“Indeed, drug addicts obtain a large part of the high biochemical without the substance,” he said.
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If similar mechanisms underlying compulsive digital behavior, putting the distance between you and your phone is the first obvious step. This could mean loading it in another room or turning it off during the night. Deleting shortcuts to some applications from your home screen could help you.
Other options include applications that promise to make you more difficult for you to waste time on other applications. There are digital tools that force users to solve a mathematical puzzle before launching a compulsive platform like Tiktok. The goal is to buy a moment of clarity – to realize: “In fact, I prefer to do something else.”
Ferguson said: “The use of social media and the use of smartphones should be fun for the most part. So, the first thing is to notice, do you have fun?”
If the answer is “no”, it may be useful to have “a cognitive plan”. Some people find it useful to have an image or slogan that they can call in mind: “Something that makes them disengage.”
His last advice? Do not condemn about takeoff. “It is healthy to think about our relationship with technology,” he said. “Try not to panic by doing it.”