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Our brain is programmed to give priority to bad news.
Although several countries progressively have started the “de-escalation,” this COVID-19 quarantine has wreaked havoc on us in several ways, including, perhaps, the excessive use of online content as our primary source of information, entertainment, and interactions. In previous articles, we have discussed how the tremendous amount of content on the internet is a key factor in developing information addiction.
This need to consume content during most of the day takes a dark turn when most of the information circulating is negative news. From the coverage of the pandemic to the social problems whose boiling point has arrived, it is practically impossible that a vast majority of the content we receive as we tour our feed could not be negative, stressful or depressing.
However, due to our patterns of content consumption established before the pandemic and adding these events, we continue to move through this cluster of bad news. This is called “Doomscrolling” or “doomsurfing,” and it could be affecting our mental health more than we realize.
What is doomscrolling?
In times of uncertainty like the one we find ourselves in now, information is one of our most basic defense mechanisms. Being informed makes us feel safe; it gives us the tools to know how to navigate a crisis. However, too much information about a negative situation can have adverse psychological effects, as Graham Davey, professor emeritus in Psychology at the University of Sussex sustains.
“Our studies also showed that this change in mood exacerbates the viewer’s own personal worries, even when those worries are not directly relevant to the news stories being broadcast.”
Davey explains that the way information is presented and how users access it has changed significantly over the past 15 to 20 years. These changes have a detrimental effect on people’s mental health. According to the professor, the news are more visual and impressionable and close at hand, thanks to the existence of mobile phones and tablets.
Being constantly exposed to this type of news can be an intense experience and cause symptoms such as stress, problems sleeping, volatile moods, aggressive behavior, depression, or even post-traumatic stress. “Our studies also showed that this change in mood exacerbates the viewer’s own personal worries, even when those worries are not directly relevant to the news stories being broadcast,” affirms Davy. The professor explains why it is so hard to stop navigating this ocean of negative news. In addition to being entertaining, the human brain is designed to pay attention to news that frightens or shakes us.
This principle is called negative bias. Loretta Breuning, former professor of Administration at California State University and author of the book, “Habits of a Happy Brain,” explains the cognitive tendency towards the consumption of negative content. “In nature, our survival depends on finding rewards and avoiding danger, but avoiding danger takes priority.”
Breuning argues that the human brain is naturally attracted to problematic information because it is programmed to detect threats, not ignore them. This makes it challenging to ignore negative news and pause it to look for positive content. Our brains are predisposed, and the way we consume news reflects it.
How do we stop doomscrolling?
There is no single solution to stop the problem of doomscrolling completely. However, there is a set of habits that we can start to apply to diminish both the time we spend consuming bad news and the effects it has on us.
Habits to diminish doomscrolling
Initiating and maintaining conversations on networks rather than just consuming content can help reduce the stress caused by negative news. One study that dates from 2016 showed that users who spend more time only reading and consuming content passively without starting conversations are more likely to develop stress more than people who are proactive when consuming content.
Conversing and externalizing both concerns and positive topics online can generate a feeling of accompaniment, which can be auxiliary support to create less tension when browsing content. Another measure is to diversify the applications we use, prioritizing apps that do not relate to informational content. Be aware of the hours spend online and the activities we perform so that we can put limits on the time we spend on applications with informative content.
The priority of keeping ourselves informed is indisputable. However, to maintain our capacity for critical thinking and the mental stability to overcome a prolonged state of crisis, it is necessary to give mental health a higher place on the scale of priorities. Maintaining healthier habits of consuming news is an excellent first step.
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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
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