Doomscrolling: what is it and how do I avoid it?
A social media user spends around 7 hours consuming unselected information.
One of the first things that we realized with the arrival of the World Covid-19 pandemic, was the excessive time of use in social networks that we use , either to work, study or simply to socialize and unburden ourselves. The digital companies Hootsuite and We Are Social created a Digital Report 2021, which indicates that the user consumes around 7 hours a day connected to the network , in translation it would be more than 48 hours a week or more.
Doomscrolling is about the action of consuming information in large quantities , without discriminating whether the consumption of news is negative or positive. And it is that after the pandemic, the world has wanted to inform itself from the first source and be updated as much as possible. One of the symptoms is the loss of sleep or not being able to sleep due to staying awake consuming stories, information, news, etc.
This usually happens on platforms that do not measure information and offer scrolling, Tik Tok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. that never come to an end on your main screens . The effect it causes on people has been reflected in the change in mood, lack of sleep, negativity, irritability, among others .
What worries psychologists and neurologists is that there is no cure or effective solution to stop doing doomscrolling. A study carried out in the United Kingdom, specifically at the University of Essex, gave respective results to the mood of users in front of the platforms and defined that only two minutes of doomscrolling on social networks negatively affect the mood.
The solutions that are proposed to stop this type of toxic virtuality, is to create a routine together of good habits that moderately adjust to our rhythm . As well as resuming social contact and trying to put the internet aside. And above all, be aware of time online and set limits.
Also, another important tip is to s elect the information to be consumed, either negative or positive . Finally, disconnecting with a walk, playing sports, going to the park, are self-compensating attitudes that help to forget virtuality and the dreaded doomscrolling.
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