How To Stop Doomscrolling — Tenpy

In our darkest hours, a villain by the name of doomscrolling rose. It invaded our lives – like a black hole absorbing all positivity – leaving us desperately scrolling and eating up all that is bleak, cynical, fatalistic. How to be your own hero? How to stop doomscrolling? Read on.

Global pandemic. War. Bigotry. Hate crimes. State-sponsored violence. Political conspiracy. Ecological breakdown. Climate change. Natural disasters. Rack and ruin. Gloom.

This is the average arrangement of your average doomscroll. On any day spent thumbing through the many feeds that make up your digital landscape, you are likely to inhale this diet of pessimism and despair until you are stuffed to the gills.

So much so that the occasional cute animal video or 30-second comedy skit ends up having to take on the impossible task of relieving you of the mental and emotional indigestion doomscrolling causes.

What is doomscrolling, though?

Short answer: Stalking negativity and bad news online.

Longer answer: Obsessively seeking depressing incidents, happenings, and circumstances on the internet until this behaviour assumes the role of an unhealthy habit in your daily routine.

While the phenomenon precedes the current age (by decades even), the specific intersection of the internet and lockdowns in the face of unprecedented times made not one, but several dictionaries name it word of the year in 2020.

Through a window, a young man can be seen looking despondent. The window reflects the trees and shrubbery outside, creating a double exposure-like visual.

And what are the effects of doomscrolling?

How doomscrolling alters your brain chemistry

No mincing words… doomscrolling is toxic. A slow-moving poison that quietly corrupts your well-being. A viciously thorny cycle, like a hamster wheel that never stops spinning as you struggle to keep pace.

Between the parasitic nature of algorithms that serve organic locally-sourced artisanal nightmares and your own self-destructive urges, you end up playing Red Riding Hood with a phone full of Big Bad Wolf. (6-inch screens, all the better to consume you with.)

Doomscrolling is addictive. It turns you into a junkie, desperately seeking the instant gratification of melancholy media. And it is linked to serious mental conditions, including depression, anxiety, and even trauma.

What to do instead of doomscrolling

There is no bandaid you can slap over the gushing wound of woe that doomscrolling leaves behind. But you can replace the repetitive thumbstoppery with alternatives — figurative little happy pills in an increasingly despondent time to be alive.

Here are 5 things to do to avoid getting caught in the sticky net of the interwebs, willing victim to the Black Widow that is doomscrolling.

Do that digital detox

It may sound trite, but if you are superglued to your smartphone, then it’s time to find a resolvent.

Is it hard to go cold turkey and lock up your devices for a couple of hours every day until you no longer hear the Pied Piper’s tune of mopery? Possibly.

But is the anguish of divorcing your devices worth it? Yes. Hundred per cent. No doubt about it.

A young man sits on a bed by a large window, reading a book

It doesn’t have to be forever. A week. Perhaps a fortnight. As long as it takes till you stop feeling around for your phone every time you need a negativity fix.

Spend time with people that matter

Once again, this is a trite solution that feels obvious and patronising. Yet, how often do you truly knock yourself off the web surfboard to actually carve out quality time with loved ones? Rarely.

And what better antidote to the venom of doomscrolling than sharing a meal, indulging in laughter, exchanging hugs, squabbling over a game, swapping gossip… the list goes on.

So call a friend or five. Drop your phones in a basket. Reconnect in the meatspace. Rediscover enjoyment.

Cultivate a hobby

If there is one thing that has slipped through the cracks in the 21st century, it is the ubiquity of hobbies. Seriously. Those used to be everywhere. Everybody had one. It was expected that you did something just for the sake of it, with no desire to monetise it or get anything out of it.

A young woman with long hair looks to the side while strumming a ukulele

You need to get your head out of a screen and play around. Collect. Grow. Make. Craft. Learn. Brew. Anything but consume.

And do it the old-fashioned way. Find a hobby shop. Browse until something catches your eye. Test it out. Savour the frustration of not acing it on the first go. Honour getting the hang of it. Make it its own goal, not a means to an end.

Reconnect with nature

At the risk of channelling Boomer energy, the opposite of an internet connection is the outside. Our dwindling relationship with nature is one of the earliest dominoes that fell, kickstarting a chain reaction that finally toppled us headfirst into doomscrolling.

It’s time you reclaim what was lost.

A man stands with back to the camera and his hands on his hips looking out at a landscape with a brook and hills in the background

Start easy: Take a walk. Kick your shoes off and stand barefoot in the grass. (Or on the sand. Or a rock.) Heck, buy flowers for your house. Get a succulent and give it a name.

Then go hardcore: Plant a kitchen garden. Book a small house with Tenpy. Escape into the woods for an evening. Sleep under the stars. Explore the outside, so you can journey further inwards.

Take the long road to gleefreshing

To misquote Robert Frost:
“Two roads diverged online, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

There is no one way to be perpetually online. Yes, algorithms push you into the habit of doomscrolling, but algorithms are learning creatures. They can be taught to cater to you.

Actively seek out the good stuff online. Yes, the cute animal video. Yes, the 30-second comedy skit. Yes, the calming creators. Yes, the positivity purveyors. Yes, the kindness curators. Yes, the delight dispensers. Yes, the empowerment emporiums. Yes, yes, yes to all that is good and sweet and uncomplicatedly nice on the internet.

Doomscrolling can buy up your mental real estate at an alarming rate, turning its historical landmarks and community spaces and open grounds into brutalist highrises of hopelessness.

Like any addiction, its hit can be comforting — grimly so. You can rehabilitate yourself, though. You can take back the power and shun the misery. Take a wrecking ball to its walls. Stand atop the rubble. Raise a flag of light that shines like a beacon in the darkness, calling to those around to declaw the monster that is doomscrolling.

This Is The End Of Your Doomscroll