Doom Scrolling

Many of us are familiar with this routine. You log onto your favorite social media platform and check the COVID-19 reports, then move on to the state of the economy, and climate change, finally ending with the latest debacle created by that politician who pushes all your buttons. Let’s not forget the latest school shootings and the gun control debate, the healthcare chaos, and the attacks on democracy. And that’s just the local news. What about the Middle Eastern wars, Russian cyber-attacks, and Australian wildfires?

There seems to be no end to the catastrophic news scrolling across our screen. Doomscrolling: Special Report 5 Bad news has always been around, of course. But why is it having such an impact on our mental health lately—and what can we do about it? Let’s take a good, hard look at the practice of doomscrolling (otherwise called doomsurfing), how it may be impacting your mental health, and what you can do to replace this negative habit with positive, fulfilling ones that improve the quality of your life.