Doomscrolling, Anyone?

Doomscrolling, Anyone?

Before I get whacked for dousing cold water on AI, our thread today is more on How to increase your DOOMSCROLLING Awareness, that's the long and short of it.  Oh yes, everyone has done it.  We pick up our phone while in a perfectly good mood, only to be inundated with notifications and social media messages bringing you up to speed on the worst news and most infuriating hot takes that humanity can offer.  So, How's your DOOMSCROLLING Awareness???

Suddenly, you feel terrible BUT instead of putting down your phone, you dive in further, feeling that your anxiety seems to be building up with every swipe and tap.  This happens several times a day and YET, we all STILL constantly reach for our phones.  YES, the mind-boggling questions are:  WHY DO WE DO THIS & HOW CAN WE STOP IT?  For alignment, let's trace back how this DOOMSCROLLING jargon came about💧💧💧

While Mr Google says DOOMSCROLLING has been around since 2018, it started to steamroll in our lives when we got hit with that dreaded pandemic in 2020.  And to give credit to WHOM it is due, American investigative journalist Karen Ho built that DOOMSCROLLING bot on that site formerly known as Twitter and that bot would remind people to take care of themselves in the midst of the pandemic💥💥💥

BUT WHO realized that WHAT DOOMSCROLLING is doing is to rob us of our time, energy + focus WHEN there are much more important things to put focus on.  BUT rather fight DOOMSCROLLING and end up with a pyrrhic victory, let's equip ourselves with the 'BASICs' to spot and even break those NEGATIVE LOOPS [no thanks to DOOMSCROLLING].  Now let's admit it, most of us [and I'm one of the guilty ones], we have that tendency to seek out NEGATIVE news and social media algorithms even would boost it.  So, DOOMSCROLLING is really a habit that emerges in part because of the way the places we get information about the world are organized😕😕😕

Our takeaway:  The things you and me do interact with on services like Twitter, Tiktok and Instagram affect the kinds of information you are likely to show up more in your timeline.  And social networks DON'T have an 'END' as their algorithm will keep showing you NEW things as long as you keep on scrolling.  The perverse thing is that DOOMSCROLLING begins with good intentions.  You want to keep with the news BUT a combination of algorithms and human nature can make you so vulnerable to focus only on the horrible things [AS IF that's the entire story].  Let's be cautious with DOOMSCROLLING dude.  Do recognize your 'triggers' before you get 'hostaged' by social media❗❗❗