What is "doomscrolling"?

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https://rightasrain.uwmedicine.org/mind ... you-should - Hi, friends. Quite a few of us this year have been reading nothing but what seems like a never-ending cavalcade of bad news- this is what's called "doomscrolling".

Here's some helpful advice about it.

Yeah, ignoring the world's problems are totally going to make them go away.

^ Did you read the article that equestriatola helpfully supplied ? I can't find anything about ignoring the world's problems in it.

Here are the first 4 bullet points in case you don't want to.

*Constantly reading bad news can lead to anxiety and negative emotions.
*Limit the amount of time you do it, the number of sources you read and when you scroll.
*Replacing the time you spent doomscrolling with enjoyable activities can also help.
*Allow yourself the chance to unwind after you read the news and focus on the positive, too.

^ Exactly. It says NOTHING about "ignoring the world's problems".

Yeah, I've had to quit cold turkey on the newspapers lately..... I also think it puts you into a state of helplessness, where it becomes harder to get out there and do what you can to improve things.

Ignoring them won't fix them, but neither will obsessing over them. Only one of these will distract you from the other s**t you need to accomplish though.

Yeah I've decided to stop obsessing so much over the virus.

Everyone high risk in my family is being sensible so they won't die of it or at least are incredibly unlikely to die of it.

Everyone low risk in my family is keeping everyone high risk safe in our own way.

If we apply it blanket wide, state wide etc people will start to moan about jobs, suicide rates amongst the allistic (they can't just socialise via zoom etc it's apparently not enough for them), stupid hospitals cancelling any other vital treatments etc.

Mum's hospital's kept going with her chemo.

The death rate will go up but I can do nothing about that except make sure nobody in my own family dies. Nobody online listens to my advice anyway.

I was also advised to shut off the darn news to stop listening to all the negativity going on in my country. Except I don't watch the news, my news is online on websites I go to because it's everywhere. There have been people that have taken breaks from social media because many people have gotten political because of the stress.

Finding it hard to strike a balance. When I read the news all the time there's a vast weight of doom hanging over me. But when I ignore it for too long, I get panicky over what might be happening while I'm not looking!