Doomscrolling: Are we obsessed with our pain?

The searches for words, Instagram and Instagram Reels have been virulently popular across cities in the country, particularly after TikTok got banned.

For representational purposes (Express Illustrations)

HYDERABAD: “Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately in love with suffering,” Fyodor Dostoevsky said a century ago. This holds true even today as most us of us, amid a lockdown, seem to be obsessed with our pain. It’s an everyday ritual to endlessly scroll social media for dystopian news.The word doomscrolling, coined in 2018 on social media, is in dictionaries now. It is defined as the action of compulsively scrolling through social media or news feeds that relate to bad news. 

But why bad news? According to experts, the mind, when conditions are unfavourable, prepares for doomsday. “The news causes stress. If it is about people we relate to, it can cause even more stress. It makes the person feel sad, bad and most of all, helpless. It will ease their pain if anything happens to them, it is a coping mechanism,” says Dr Venkat Subbaiah, a clinical psychologist from the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), Hyderabad. “We all know that stress is harmful in numerous ways. It is exciting too.”

Doomscrolling is like a rollercoaster ride -- it causes stress but it is exciting. However, too much of it can harm us. On an average, a user spends at least two hours scrolling through feed, which translates to two hours of stress. This is too much for the mind and body, Dr Subbaiah says. “Imagine a two-hour ride on a rollercoaster. It would be a disaster.”Searching is better than scrolling. Social media has got people addicted to it as they don’t have to search for information as such anymore. 

It readily gives them what they want. The searches for words, Instagram and Instagram Reels have been virulently popular across cities in the country, particularly after TikTok got banned.  “It is always better to search for what you are looking for, spend some time online and then leave, anything more than 15 minutes is not good,” Dr Subbaiah says. After lockdown, consumption of data has grown by 30 per cent across the country, particularly in metropolitan cities such as Hyderabad, according to the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI).  

How to end doomscrolling

• Social media apps have a time monitor to track the number of hours spent on them. Minimise your time spent on apps
• Find a substitute. It is always better to replace a habit with a habit. Try baking, cooking, painting, or reading
• Stop being spoon-fed feed, start feeding feed on your own. Don’t let social media take control of you. It is your account, you control it

— Mayank Tiwari
 mayank.tiwari@newindianexpress.com
 @out_in_doubt