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Have you found yourself consuming article after article about bad news after an alarming event?
Maybe you read one article about COVID-19-related deaths in your newsfeed, or perhaps an article about a disturbing murder, or wildfires, or the assault on the US capitol. This leads to clicking on more articles, and soon you have found yourself “down a rabbit hole” of continuous bad and disturbing news. Bad news can have an addictive quality.
The more dramatic the news, the more we tend to get lost in it. Media companies are aware of this and make most of their money through advertising and rates related to the numbers of readers. The more readers, the more profits. As a result, it is in their best interest to present things as dramatically as possible.
In the era of AI and algorithms, the situation is even more complex. The AI system detects what you are reading and sends you more of the same. After a while, you end up stuck in a news bubble that only sends you more of the same with no differing perspectives. So, if you start reading doom and gloom, articles you will have more doom and gloom stories suggested for you. Soon it will seem as if the world is falling apart as you read article after article of horrible news.
Detecting danger is a central function of our brain and central nervous system. In our cave-dwelling days this prevented us from threats related to attacks from animals or people and from being caught in dangerous weather. Our system works the same now and doesn’t discriminate between real threats and the bad news we read. Our body is on high alert and prepared to respond. If you think about the number of people who ride roller coasters or go to spooky houses during Halloween, we clearly enjoy the adrenaline rush of fear. We get the same adrenaline rush when our fear response is triggered by reading disturbing material. Thrillers, mysteries, and other adrenaline-triggering books are really popular for a reason.
Too much doomscrolling overwhelms our system. We begin to suffer from stress, anxiety, and/or depression. Our bodies produce high levels of a natural steroid called cortisol. This can wreak havoc on your body. You may experience digestive problems, headaches, sleep problems, along with memory and concentration impairment and heart disease. Cortisol and chronic stress can also contribute to weight gain.
Keeping yourself informed is good, but too much is problematic. If you are spending more than an hour or two to catch up on the news, you probably need to shift your focus to something else. It is important to change the media you are consuming when you start to have difficulty sleeping, headaches, or digestive problems.
How to break the cycle?
Change what you are reading and watching. Search cute animal videos, or articles about a hobby you have, read interesting travel articles. Once you start doing this, your news algorithms will change, and you will get more articles about these things and fewer gloom and doom articles.
