By Shailendree Wickrama Adittiya
Doomscrolling is described as the act of spending an excessive amount of time online, absorbing negative news. This is something many of us have been engaging in lately, endlessly scrolling through our social media feeds.
This has a considerable impact on our mental health as well as lifestyle in general. Many stay up late into the night, finding it difficult to disconnect, put down their phones, and go to bed. The first thing we do when we wake up is to check social media to know what went on in the country, as well as the rest of the world, while we slept.
Since this is something that many are experiencing, we reached out to Colombo-based Dutch psychologist Dr. Marcel de Roos, who has more than 30 years of experience in the field. He went into detail about doomscrolling and the impact this has on our mental health.
“The internet can be a great place, until you fall into a pit of depressing news. Many people have the tendency to return for more. This is where doomscrolling or doomsurfing enters,” Dr. de Roos said.
He went on to say that, in Sri Lanka, this is exacerbated by the pandemic and the current political, economic, and social situation. With people spending more time at home and thus, more time on their phones and computers, they are more likely to check social media and absorb news, which tends to lean towards the negative side these days.
According to Dr. de Roos, doomscrolling can make you feel anxious, stressed, fearful, and depressed. It can also disrupt sleep patterns and cause eating disorders and fatigue.
“We know that it’s not making good use of our time, but we continue doing it. It can develop into a form of addiction and this might have a serious impact on one’s mental health. So why are we doing this to ourselves?” he questioned.
There are a few theories for this.
“One explanation is that negative events have a bigger impact on our mental wellbeing than positive ones. Another one is that, in an evolutionary sense, we are primed to anticipate danger,” Dr. de Roos said. He added that, with doomscrolling, we are searching for things that might harm us. While it is good to be informed, he explained that at some point, it does us more harm than good.
“A third possibility is that negative stories can create a feedback-loop that can turn into a vicious cycle,” he further explained.
The psychologist added that doomscrolling can become a coping mechanism to deal with the uncertainties of the present world. This is especially applicable to times of stress created by the Covid-19 pandemic as well as the country situation at present.
If you are someone who engages in doomscrolling and have been feeling the adverse effects of this type of behaviour, you may be looking for a way to disconnect. According to Dr. de Roos, medication is of little to no use as with most mental issues, with a few exceptions like schizophrenia or a psychosis.
“At best, it can numb or activate you a bit, but it doesn’t address root causes (which therapy does address),” he said.
The effort must be made by the individual in this case, as Dr. de Roos said, the best way to stop doomscrolling would be to reduce the time one spends on different apps and websites that contain negative news. “Or you can even delete Twitter or certain websites. Stay informed about the news on a few selected platforms and sources and limit your time on these,” he suggested.
“The trick is to be aware of when you are doomscrolling. When you notice it, you can tell yourself that this won’t give you a good feeling so you need to stop with it. If it has become an addiction, then you need to find out what’s underneath it,” Dr. de Roos went on to say.
He explained that addictions help us to stop feeling what we would feel without them. “By providing ourselves with a ‘shot’ of our favourite addiction, we don’t feel the pain of, for example, emptiness or loneliness.”
The psychologist added that, generally speaking, we do not feel our unfulfilled needs from the past as we anaesthetise them. Thus what usually does work is to find out what you really crave for or are afraid of.
“Practically it means: stopping with the addiction (if necessary, in phases); each time when the need comes up try to feel this emotion in your body (not your thoughts) and focus on it; and lastly try to accept the pain when you feel that you will never get what you needed in the past,” he said.
To succeed in all this, Dr. de Roos said that you will need a dedicated and professional therapist.
