Doomscrolling is a constant feed of miscellaneous and often useless or false information leading to a very negative mindset. You might as well be pouring the contents of a dumpster into your head. It’s one of the main reasons for the idiot culture of these times.
It’s also a form of exploitation. If it’s in a feed, it’ll be sucked up automatically. It’s aimed at the lowest common denominator, and someone will ingest it.
It’s an instant source of stress, and distraction, usually both. A lot of it is just second-hand spin, “interpretations” of news from whatever, in your face.
Doomscrolling is largely a behavioral phenomenon. Simply because it’s on a screen, people will look and doomscroll. Unlike advertising, of which 95% is instantly ignored, doomscrolling gets an automatic audience.
The automatic response to media of any kind is pretty much the old TV response with different tech. If you remember the famous 1950s picture of people looking at an approaching train and cowering, it’s almost identical. They were afraid of the train, but not one person moved to get out of its way.
People know they’re doomscrolling, but don’t get out of the way. However useless, it’ll be seen. However irrelevant, it’ll take up your time.
The effects are most notable on news feeds, but there are other forms. The constant breaks in focus caused by ads, digressions, and other distractions mangle attention spans.
Doctors are now having to deal with this stupid, primitive stimulus. Stress can come from anywhere and anything, but whether the doomscrolling is false or not, the stress is real, and stress is dangerous. Cortisol levels alone can trash your health very unambiguously.
One of the less endearing factors in doomscrolling is deliberate overstress. The most insane statements are designed to cause stress. They may be utterly meaningless or total gibberish, but this is how they work. It’s an instant polarizing effect.
This is largely a button-pushing exercise. Online, it generates stats for the people pushing your buttons. Statistical responses get pushed or not, depending on numbers of hits. Pretty simple, really.
Either you respond with a knee jerk, or you respond with a rebuttal, but the stress is in place. You may continue doomscrolling to try and counter the effects of doomscrolling. Behaviorism 101.
Cambridge Analytica mapped out the issues for the 2016 election and was the ancestor of the 2024 election. People weren’t eating pets in Ohio. Illegal immigrants were picking the food, and so on. Real information got lost in the hype. Many “news” sources just buried non-doomscrolling fodder.
The fact is that doomscrolling is dangerous.
To avoid doomscrolling:
Start with your strongest areas of expertise. Very little BS will get through.
Skim the headlines. You don’t need to know everything, do you?.
Avoid high-polarity subjects. You know you’re being lied to.
Cross-check anything and everything against other sources. This removes most of the garbage. Good information can back itself up with independent verification.
Look for self-contradictions. All liars and fake news contradict themselves, sooner or later.
Above all – Don’t generate stats for further doomscrolling.
Keep the producers of doomscrolls guessing. They deserve it.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
