What clicks in your mind when you hear about ‘An Addiction’? I mean, a lot of people are addicted to something in one way or another. The growth of technology is noticeable for the last ten years. The growth of digital social media platforms and digital information communication systems have advanced immensely. Well, there are huge merits associated with all this innovation and growth you name it; Information Sharing and so forth. There are negative effects of these great information technology innovations as well.
What are the negative effects of technology? Doomscrolling is one of the trending effects of technology. It affects individuals in an invisible way but this article will enlighten you on what necessarily is Doomscrolling, how it happens and even how to mitigate and curb this issue.
The Overview of Doomscrolling.
Doomscrolling or what is known as gloom and doom is a new adoption or rather a hazardous way of life that is negatively affecting the technological audience in the modern society. Doomscrolling can be well explained if one understands the meaning of anxiety. What is Anxiety? It’s an overwhelming thought caused by uncertainty, fear and too much worry. Stress is the word that can be used to explain anxiety because it elaborates on a persistent worry on daily situations.
Further, Doomscrolling is a recent slang that is being used to explain the aspect of consuming news and negative information in the internet through doom and gloom fatal aspects without limit. If you endlessly consume doom-and-gloom news, Doomscrolling is the syndrome that will affect you.
Three types Doomscrolling
Doomscrolling can be further categorized into three chronic types. To begin with, there are definite consequences that result from Doomscrolling anxiety. And when you understand the consequences and these context results, one can be able to classify the type of Doomscrolling one if having. Below are the three major context anxiety types.
a) Social Doomscrolling. Quite a huge number of individuals are victims of social discriminations and humiliation. Also known as a social phobia, this is one of the anxiety types that can be grouped in the category of Doomscrolling. Well, the victims isolate him or herself in the image of the society. Since technological amenities are readily available, the victim will stroll deep into news and all online junks and consume them. In this situation, the victim will be addicted to this practice and an addiction will result.
The excessive consumption of hurting and news will ruin her emotions and life resulting into this form of stress and anxiety. There are some examples which can explain this form of anxiety breed. Look at it this way, many countries across the globe have imposed measures against social gatherings and so forth. Any social phobic individual is happy because there is a limited avenue on social amenities such as schools and so forth. If there is news of resuming, it will be stressful for a social phobic individual to accept the resume of normal vibes.
b) Panic attack Doomscrolling. Earlier on, the word addiction is used and it’s appropriate in this form of anxiety. The digital age has made information readily available. You can retrieve past information and past events. The retrieval can be positive or negative as the same time. On the Positive point of view, one can get solutions based on the past digital documentation. The worst can only happen when you realize the worst in your life through the basis of digital repositories.
After strolling for more information or rather doom and glooming this news, the results will be a fatal panic attack anytime you get involved in similar online documented scenarios. Some information in the online context may be unreliable. If this addiction is persisted, one can damage his/herself further. An example which is real and which has resulted in this syndrome is the corona pandemic which has affected people negatively in terms of movement and social gathering. Many people are financially unstable and any news associated to the pandemic torments a lot of people.
c) Obsessive Doomscrolling. This is a breed of anxiety that is more self-induced. Most people know their weak points in terms of perceiving news and reading certain media. Obsession is one of the breed majors in this paradigm that is of significant or rather alarming. Scrolling web pages in your social media platforms becomes addictive and often affects people in a different way. So many things on the internet can be causes of anxiety and stress. Graphical images and videos affect people in a different way. The consumption of pornographic content is often fatal and there are so many factors that are endless on these platforms.
Reasons as to why Doomscrolling anxiety happens.
There are so many reasons as to why people sentence themselves to this pool of despair. Some of the reasons are associated with professions and others are associated with lifestyles that people adopt. In the view of professions, journalists are largely affected by this practice or rather behavior. The mental structure of every human is developed differently to handle certain amounts of information and knowledge in both the negative state and the positive state. If one is not trained to handle certain information, an anxiety may happen and further extend into a health problem.
In the technological world, doom and gloom news often affect the mental state if you are not oriented to the world of digital content. It can be addictive and at some point, impact the mental state of a tech-user. The mental state of humans is wired to respond rapidly to threat. Every time one keeps on Doomscrolling, the more danger one is exposed to. Doomscrolling behavior can be stopped and mitigated. Below are some of the ways to stop this effect.
Ways of curbing Doomscrolling anxiety.
a. Therapies (Self-monitoring therapies or Guided Therapies)
Guided therapies are where you involve a therapist to help you monitor your progress in terms of eliminating a certain behavior. In this particular concept, the therapist can come up with control procedures and standards to govern your presence in the internet. The solutions are not abstaining from the online world but creating a limitation and narrowing online activities to those of importance. On the self-therapy aspect, make logical set ups of how you will handle your online routines.
b. Self-periodic checkups.
The self-periodic check-up is where you monitor yourself in the following aspect; if you are seeking a solution in the online world, ensure that the sole objective. The only way to fact checks that is to know if you have really gotten the solution. Make yourself understand what you are doing in the online world.
Doomscrolling is often dangerous even to your normal activities such as studying or your jobs. Live straight by learning more about Doomscrolling.
