How to Stop Doomscrolling

Doomscrolling, meaning obsessively scanning social media and websites for bad news, triggers the release of stress hormones that can affect your mental and physical health.

Between the amped-up news cycle and a global pandemic, it can seem as if bad news is omnipresent and inescapable. If you're one of the many Americans who keeps refreshing your social media feed and other sites to keep track of all of it in real time, it turns out you're not alone. The compulsion is so common it even has a name: doomscrolling.

What is doomscrolling?

Doomscrolling sometimes also referred to as doomsurfing is a phenomenon where you constantly scroll or surf through social media and other news sites in order to keep up with the latest news even (and, it seems, particularly) if the news is bad. Although the phrase is thought to have been coined sometime in 2018 on Twitter, it's picked up steam since then in our cultural lexicon, becoming more popular after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March and April of 2020. Technology columnist Kevin Roose described it as “falling into deep, morbid rabbit holes filled with Coronavirus content, agitating yourself to the point of physical discomfort, erasing any hope of a good night's sleep.” Doomscrolling doesn't necessarily have to be related to COVID-19, but given how the Coronavirus has dominated the news cycle throughout 2020, a lot of people who are doomscrolling tend to fixate on news about COVID-19 or Donald Trump.

How doomscrolling affects your health?

“Doomscrolling can be a harmful habit, and detrimental to your mental and even physical health,” explains Stephanie J. Wong PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist based in San Mateo, CA. According to Wong, the current COVID-19 pandemic has created an “over-arching sense of anxiety and depression” among most Americans. Unfortunately, consuming more information, especially negative information, can reinforce that anxiety and depression in a vicious cycle.

Doomscrolling can also exacerbate pre-existing or developing mental health symptoms, says Wong. Even for people who don't have a previous underlying mental health condition, constantly consuming bad news can lead to catastrophizing, or focusing on the negative aspects of the world around you in a way that makes it more and more difficult to notice anything positive.

These mental health effects can then snowball and cause physical issues. When you experience stress whether it's low-level stress from doomscrolling or a sudden, stressful event like a car crash your body kicks into overdrive and releases stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol.

This evolutionary response, called fight or flight, initially helped humans run quickly from predators, and can still be useful today when faced with a dangerous situation. People in the middle of a fight-or-flight response powered by adrenaline and cortisol have been known to lift cars and perform other feats of strength, demonstrate heightened senses such as sight and smell, and remain awake for long periods of time to study for finals or prepare for a big presentation. However, releasing too much adrenaline and cortisol over a long period of time can cause burnout and worse. Long term activation of this fight-or-flight response has been linked to digestive problems, headaches, heart disease, weight gain, anxiety, sexual side effects, and high blood pressure, as well as many other health issues.

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