There’s a wealth of readily available negative news these days. And folks are lapping it up. If you’re one of them, did you know there can be serious emotional and mental consequences? The results of a new study tell the tale.
…emotions such as anger, fear, disgust, and sadness are cleverly employed to create and sustain attraction.
Name your poison: law enforcement encounters, street violence, war footage, terrorist attacks, political violence, car crashes.
Name your supplier: TV, movies, social media, YouTube, podcasts, websites.
And never forget the mantra of the media: “If it bleeds, it leads.”
Intro
Prior to writing this piece, I didn’t know what doomscrolling was. If we’re in the same boat, here ya’ go…
Doomstrolling is the compulsive and indiscriminate consumption of sad, scary, or negative content via the suppliers mentioned above.
The study
A new study conducted by researchers from Flinders University (Australia) reveals and discusses the emotional and mental consequences of doomscrolling.
“Doomscrolling evokes existential anxiety and fosters pessimism about human nature? Evidence from Iran and the United States” features input from 800 university student participants from two distinctly different cultures
As we move into the study, it’s important to note that lead author Reza Shabahang submits that our appetite for negative news is fueled by our inherent negativity bias tendencies.
Heads up: what you’re about to read comes from the study narrative as well as the interpretation of results.
Consequences
Not that they had to tell us, but the study team emphasize that negativity is one of the prominent characteristics of news media (their “bleed/lead” mantra).
As you may have experienced, emotions such as anger, fear, disgust, and sadness are cleverly employed to create and sustain attraction.
Poor emotional and mental health
“I used to lap this stuff up, but it’s taking over my life.”
The team go on to say that negative news can be associated with adverse personal and societal outcomes, including deterioration of societal cohesion and trust in government.
But front page news for us is the consumption of negative news can contribute to poor emotional and mental health.
Included on the possibilities list: altered perspectives toward self, others, and existence, elevated risk-taking, overall psychological distress, compromised feeling of well-being, fear of missing out, exacerbated future anxiety, and – of course – problematic media use.
Did you know it could get that intense?
Trauma and existential crises
As if the consequences above weren’t challenging enough, doomscrolling can be a source of vicariously experienced trauma, which has the potential to trigger acute and posttraumatic stress.
As we know all too well, trauma can induce anxiety and depression. So before we know it, we’re dealing with an unstable cumulative effect that can explode into existential crises.
If that happens, we’ll become obsessed with questions about what it means to be human, the nature of life and death, and what it is that makes life worth living. Now, those questions are excellent, if they’re well-considered – but they won’t be.
By the way, doomscrolling can have consequences well beyond those involving self. For instance, misanthropy – a hatred or distrust of humankind – is always a possibility.
Susceptibility
Personality variables may render some folks more susceptible to doomscrolling.
To name a few, those with lower self-control, higher neuroticism, cynicism, generalized anxiety, and political interest.
Anything hit home?
I may not have been familiar with the term “doomscrolling” prior to composing this piece, but I sure knew what it was – if you know what I mean.
That’s one of the cool things about writing these articles. You get to connect a lot of dots.
What about you? Are you a doomscroller?
If you’d like to read the entire study – theories, statistics, citations – here you go: Doomscrolling evokes existential anxiety and fosters pessimism about human nature? Evidence from Iran and the United States
If you’re up for more reading material, go ahead and peruse the Chipur info and inspiration titles. You’ll be glad you did.
After a decades-long battle with panic, generalized anxiety, fluctuating moods, and alcohol dependence; Bill finally found his life’s passion and work – lending a hand to those in the same boat. At age 49 he hit grad school and earned his counseling credentials. And he continues his service through Chipur and other projects.
