I hear it all the time and I always thought it is when you can’t stop scrolling? And it’s a bad thing too. So could you maybe give an example and explain what it is and say why it is so bad?
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Ignoring the world swiping on posts/videos for hours. Usually implied to cause/perpetuate/be a symptom of depression.
Mindlessly scrolling whatever app/site of your preference for no reason. You are not getting particulary entertained or anything, but waste several hours doing it.
Never heard it being related to depression like other guy says. Anyone can do it.
Edit: not saying depressed people aren’t doing it. I personally ain’t depressed or anything else, but when I’m sick I usually start doomscrolling because I can’t be bothered to do anything.
It’s used to refer to spending a lot of time scrolling news, especially on social media, and especially bad news.
The term gained notoriety around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, when people would get addicted to scrolling through stories of people getting sick, the body counts rising, pictures of hospitals etc for hours at a time.
> I always thought it is when you can’t stop scrolling?
It’s more like “you can’t stop scrolling and reading negative content that is making you feel bad”.
There’s a major problem with the way information is presented to the user right now. In short, negative content tends to drive more engagement than positive content and the system is designed to feed you more things that you engage with *regardless of why you engaged with it*.
We’ve unlocked some really cool tech with things like AI and algorithms that are looking to match people with content and drive engagement. But unfortunately, we’ve not yet built any safeguards for how those things function. The result is that you have people who legitimately believe that things are worse than they are, that are scrolling through story after story of awful things in the world completely unaware of the broader picture. A very common example is that many people in the US think violent crime is on the rise… except the data shows that violent crimes are generally on a downward track.
The old adage “if it bleeds it leads” still holds true, but now people are seeing nothing but the bleeding.
Doom scrolling is essentially a feedback loop for people who spend a lot of time online, they interact with posts about politics or Global affairs or climate change, any number of issues, with essentially a lot of bad news and projections of Doom
As they interact with this stuff the website learns from their data and gives them more, and before long they are endlessly scrolling through a bunch of Doom and Gloom the world is ending material, which is not great for one’s Mental Health
A little more specific than the other answers: doomscrolling is when you can’t stop reading your personal news feed, especially when it’s all bad news.
* Tends to refer to social media/info sites – originally it referred almost exclusively to Twitter, now would generally include Instagram and the ‘Tok
* Tends to refer to news that 1) you think is bad, and 2) entirely out of your control
* Term became popular during Trump presidency, and then COVID – lots of people going “guh, can you believe this shit, we’re so fucked” over and over again
It’s when you allow yourself to get stuck reading negative news in an unproductive, harmful way. The “doom” comes from the fact that doing so can leave you feeling hopeless: if you continually consume stories about problems and tragedy that you can’t do anything about, it can leave you feeling hopeless.
So someone who already feels anxious might feel drawn to reading about scary, upsetting news, which validates their feeling of anxiety, which drives them to continue consuming scary, upsetting information. This becomes a feedback loop: the more the read, the more anxious they get, the more the feel like they need to be prepared, which drives them to read more.
It’s not healthy to constantly focus on problems that are beyond you to deal with. It’s important to break out of doomscrolling and focus on the things in your life you CAN do something about, as well as allowing yourself time for positivity. It’s fine to want to stay informed (and probably not healthy to completely isolate yourself from the real problems out there), but you can’t let it become an obsession.
Continuously reading negative stories/comments because you can’t stop yourself. You aren’t enjoying it. You’re just adding more things to feel doomed about. You may try to convince yourself that you’re looking for something hopeful, but when you do come across a positive story you may skip it since it doesn’t seem as important as the negative one just under it. It can make you depressed because you’re getting a constant influx of bad news, and there’s oftten nothing you can actually do, which may lead you to feel the world is doomed.
perhaps my understanding isn’t nuanced enough. i always understood doomscrolling as scrolling when the head is empty. no motive to be productive, or even has fun. to be frank, starting at a wall might be healthier than doomscrolling, because then it can initiate introspection or wonder. yet apparently some may consider these necessary things, as uncomfortable.
Rage-bait, Outrage Porn, Social Media is a dumpster fire of drama because that’s what people engage with most and online workers, (journalists, streamers, influencers,) are paid by engagement.
so you scroll and scroll and MOST of what you see isn’t useful tips on how to replace your sink faucet or how to remove mold or paint without streaking — you’re not seeing informative helpful information about government and culture, you’re just getting the absolute fucking worst of it.
doomscrolling is continuing through all this shit in the hopes you’ll get something better — you won’t. it’s a cesspool. “touch grass” is important. because otherwise you’re just being told you live in a country full of nazis and illegal aliens trying to make life hell for everyone and that you’ll never make a living, never find love, never succeed at anything, and you’ll die working yourself to the bone while the planet rots from climate emergencies.
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