Opinion: Practicing self-control online is crucial to your mental health

Have you found yourself engaging in so-called doomscrolling?

That’s when you seemingly mindlessly continue to scroll through news or other content, often on social media, that has a negative bent. Your brain might feel exhausted, your anxiety levels could be high, and you’re likely to feel a sense of dread and helplessness.

Doomscrolling tends to feed into the state that’s often referred to as being chronically online. This is fairly self-explanatory, though a nasty side effect can be dissociation to the reality around you.

As you can probably guess from these unpleasant feelings, being chronically online can have negative health effects, particularly on one’s mental health.

This has been well documented by the likes of Wired – see “Doomscrolling Is Slowly Eroding Your Mental Health,” published in 2020 – and “CBS Sunday Morning” – a report titled “The science of worsening online behavior” was released this year.

Doomscrolling may have become worse during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Wired article, when people spent more of their lives inside their homes and had ample free time due to lockdowns.

“Each night ends the way the day began, with an endless scroll through social media in a desperate search for clarity,” Wired writer Angela Watercutter states in the article.

Doomscrolling even has an entry on WebMD.

“Doomscrolling can send your mind racing and lead to burnout. It can also make you feel uncertain, anxious or distressed,” writes Evan Starkman in a WebMD article medically reviewed by Dr. Neha Pathak. “And those feelings can steal your sleep, appetite, motivation or desire to do things you usually enjoy, research suggests.”

If that sounds similar to depression, you’d be right.

Here, I can speak from experience.

During 2020 and 2021, when a deadly pandemic was ravaging the world, racial protests were commonplace and the country was experiencing severe election fallout that led to the insurrection in Washington, D.C., I was in full doomscrolling mode. I felt helpless from those events, and in my mind, staying informed was the best thing I could do to help.

It didn’t. I fell into a depression, and the horrible events in the world kept occurring.

It took me a long time to get out of that funk, and I can feel myself drifting back if I don’t stop myself.

People should be informed, but there’s a line one can cross where your mental health is more adversely impacted than any good you could do by continuing to read more content.

I had my moment of clarity, and I can say that I’m better now from a mental health perspective. Maybe you or someone you know are experiencing a similar impact on your mental health brought about by doomscrolling or being chronically online.

The WebMD article has some great advice:

• Limit your use of social media and news websites during set times. Setting an alarm can be helpful. Make sure you stick to the boundaries you set for yourself.
• Turn off notifications. Realize that apps, particularly those from social media, are designed to keep you there as long as possible. Toggling off notifications is a good way to never start doomscrolling.
• If a social media network or news source is particularly distressing, break away from it.
• Make a mental note when you mindlessly go online and start scrolling. The idea is your mind will recognize this and form new habits.
• Take time to process your feelings. If a particular piece of content is distressing, step away from the social media site or article. Don’t continue to look up more articles about it. Talk with another person offline about the feelings you had about it.

I personally leaned heavily on the ideology behind the serenity prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Acceptance of the things you cannot personally change is difficult, but your mental health may be on the line.

Springfield Business Journal Digital Editor Geoff Pickle can be reached at gpickle@sbj.net.