During trying times or crisis, when we have endless questions running haywire in our minds, we look for answers from sources like news channels, news papers, social media and so on. Crisis-time news is mostly bad but we keep scrolling and scrolling, looking for answers and updates and end up getting disturbed and depressed.
I recently realized that there is a term for this feeling when we can’t stop scrolling through bad news. It is called “Doomscrolling” or “Doomsurfing”.
Doomscrolling and Doomsurfing are new terms referring to the tendency to continue to surf or scroll through bad news, even though that news is saddening, disheartening, or depressing
Merriam-Webster
Doomsurfing versus Doomscrolling
Doomsurfing is a relatively older term when internet was a newbie and people flicked or “surfed” through news channels on the television. Whereas, Doomscrolling is a newer term for the age of social media where people scroll through tweets, posts or stories.
Doomscrolling is bad, Keep it in check!
Doom refers to destruction or some kind of terrible outcome. It is a negative term. Similarly, Doomscrolling is also a negative action. Most of the time we doomscroll and think that by doing it, we are keeping abreast of the latest updates on the crisis but in turn, we end up feeling worse, anxious, sad and stressed out. It’s a good practice to keep time in check while scrolling through bad news.
Also read: 10 times we ended up doomscrolling in 2020
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