Doomscrolling: A Review

Year 2024, Volume: 16 Issue: 4, 595 - 603, 25.12.2024

Sena Güme

https://doi.org/10.18863/pgy.1416316

Cited By: 1

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has changed the daily life habits of individuals as well as affecting their physical health. Efforts to acquire information about the outbreak and combat uncertainty have led to an increase in individuals' consumption of negative news. Technology and social media platforms have facilitated access to this information, resulting in the emergence of a new term called "doomscrolling". Doomscrolling is defined as the act of spending excessive time online navigating through unpleasant news, despite it being saddening or demoralising. Among the underlying reasons for this behavior, the desire to cope with uncertainty and the quest for positive information stand out. Additionally, personality traits and mental health status emerge as significant factors influencing this behavior. Strategies to reduce or prevent doomscrolling involve controlling technology usage, finding positive content to balance negative information, and engaging in offline activities that positively impact mental well-being. Given ongoing wars, economic crises, natural disasters, and similar situations, individuals' desire for information may lead to doomscrolling behavior, posing a risk of negative effects. Therefore, efforts aimed at promoting conscious technology usage and content consumption habits could be a critical step in preventing doomscrolling.

Keywords

doomscrolling, news, social media

Felaket Kaydırması: Bir Gözden Geçirme

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemisi bireylerin fiziksel sağlığını etkilediği kadar günlük yaşam alışkanlarını da değiştirmiştir. Salgınla ilgili bilgi alma ve belirsizlikle mücadele çabası sonucu bireylerin olumsuz haber tüketimi artırmıştır. Teknoloji ve sosyal medya platformları da bu bilgilere erişimi kolaylaştırmıştır. Bu durum felaket kaydırması adlı yeni bir terimin ortaya çıkmasına neden olmuştur. Felaket kaydırması, üzücü veya moral bozucu olmasına rağmen hoş olmayan haberler arasında gezinerek çevrimiçi aşırı zaman harcama olarak tanımlanmaktadır. Bu davranışın altında yatan nedenler arasında, belirsizlikle mücadele etme isteği ve olumlu bilgileri bulma çabası öne çıkmaktadır. Buna ek olarak, kişilik özellikleri ve zihinsel sağlık durumu, bu davranışı etkileyen önemli faktörlerdendir. Felaket kaydırmasının azaltılması veya önlenmesi adına teknoloji kullanımının kontrol altına alınması, olumsuz içerikleri dengeleyici olumlu içeriklerin bulunması ve bireylerin ruh sağlığını olumlu etkileyen çevrimdışı aktivitelerin gerçekleştirilmesi gibi stratejilerden yararlanılabilmektedir. Günümüzde de devam eden savaş, ekonomik kriz, doğal afetler gibi durumlar düşünüldüğünde bireylerin bilgi edinme isteği sonucu felaket kaydırması davranışında bulunarak olumsuz etkilenme riski bulunmaktadır. Bu doğrultuda, bilinçli teknoloji kullanımı ve içerik tüketim alışkanlıklarına yönelik yapılacak çalışmalar felaket kaydırmasını önleme açısından kritik bir adım olabilir.

Keywords

Felaket kaydırması, haberler, sosyal medya

References

• Anand N, Sharma MK, Thakur PC, Mondal I, Sahu M, Singh P et al (2022) Doomsurfing and doomscrolling mediate psychological distress in COVID-19 lockdown: implications for awareness of cognitive biases. Perspect Psychiatr Care, 58:170-172.
• Anlı G (2023) Felaket haberlerini kaydırma ölçeği Türkçe formunun geçerlik ve güvenirlik çalışması. Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, 25:301-316.
• Bırni G, Deniz ME, Karaağaç ZG, Erişen Y, Kaya Y, Satıcı SA (2024) Rebuilding wellbeing: understanding the role of self-criticism, anger rumination, and death distress after the February 6, 2023, Türkiye earthquake. Death Stud, 48:511-521.
• Buchanan K, Aknin LB, Lotun S, Sandstrom GM (2021) Brief exposure to social media during the COVID-19 pandemic: doom-scrolling has negative emotional consequences, but kindness-scrolling does not. PloS One, 16:e0257728.
• Das BS (2022) Teaching journalism in the era of doomscrolling. Radical Teacher, 124:24-32.
• Eysenck MW, Fajkowska M (2018) Anxiety and depression: toward overlapping and distinctive features. Cogn Emot, 32:1391-1400.
• Gerges M (2023) TikTok made me buy it: emotional carryover of doomscrolling on purchasing decisions (Senior thesis). Claremont,CA, Claremont McKenna College.
• Groot Kormelink T, Klein Gunnewiek A (2021) From “far away” to “shock” to “fatigue” to “back to normal”: how young people experienced news during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal Stud, 23:669-686.
• Grossekemper L (2023) Sex differences and helplessness in climate change doomscrolling (Bachelor thesis). Enschede, University of Twente.
• Hau M. (2023) Doomscrolling through climate change: the mental health impact of excessive climate news consumption (Bachelor thesis). Enschede, University of Twente.
• Johnston WM, Davey GC (1997) The psychological impact of negative tv news bulletins: the catastrophizing of personal worries. Br J Psychol, 88:85-91.
• Kartol A, Üztemur S, Yaşar P (2023) ‘I cannot see ahead’: psychological distress, doomscrolling and dark future among adult survivors following mw 7.7. and 7.6 earthquakes in Türkiye. BMC Public Health, 23:2513.
• Katariya J (2020) The rise of doomscrolling: how negative emotions drive engagement with political content on Twitter. https://dssoc.github.io/project_examples/dss_fa2020_rise_of_doomscrolling_jaiveer_katariya.html (Accessed 04.11.2020).
• Kemp, S (2020) Report: most important data on digital audiences during coronavirus. https://thenextweb.com/news/report-most-important-data-on-digital-audiences-during-coronavirus (Accessed 24.04.2020).
• Lades LK, Laffan K, Daly M, Delaney L (2020) Daily emotional well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Br J Health Psychol, 25:902-911.
• Mannell K, Meese J (2022) From doom-scrolling to news avoidance: limiting news as a wellbeing strategy during COVID lockdown. Journal Stud, 23:302-319.
• McLaughlin B, Gotlieb MR, Mills DJ (2023) Caught in a dangerous world: problematic news consumption and its relationship to mental and physical ill-being. Health Commun, 38:2687-2697.
• Merriam Webster (2020) On ‘doomsurfing’ and ‘doomscrolling’ can you think of a better way to spend your time?. https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/doomsurfing-doomscrolling-words-were-watching (Accessed 06.01.2024).
• Newman N (2023) Overview and key findings of the 2023 digital news report. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2023/dnr-executive-summary (Accessed 14.06.2023).
• Nguyen N (2020) Doomscrolling: why we just can’t look away. https://www.wsj.com/articles/doomscrolling-why-we-just-cant-look-away-11591522200 (Accessed 07.06.2020).
• Oxford Languages (2020) Oxford Languages 2020 words of an unprecedented year. https://languages.oup.com/wp-content/uploads/oxford-languages-words-of-an-unprecedented-year-2020.pdf (Accessed 06.01.2024).
• Park CS (2015) Applying “negativity bias” to twitter: negative news on twitter, emotions, and political learning. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 12:342-359.
• Pas Lt (2023) The influence of depression on doom scrolling and climate change engagement: a mixed-methods study (Bachelor thesis). Enschede, University of Twente.
• Price M, Legrand AC, Brier ZMF, van Stolk-Cooke K, Peck K, Dodds PS et al. (2022) Doomscrolling during COVID-19: the negative association between daily social and traditional media consumption and mental health symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Psychol Trauma, 14:1338-1346.
• Riehm KE, Holingue C, Kalb LG, Bennett D, Kapteyn A, Jiang Q et al. (2020) Associations between media exposure and mental distress among US adults at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Am J Prev Med, 59:630-638.
• Robertson CE, Pröllochs N, Schwarzenegger K, Pärnamets P, Van Bavel JJ, Feuerriegel S (2023) Negativity drives online news consumption. Nat Hum Behav, 7:812-822.
• Rodrigues EV (2022) Doomscrolling – threat to mental health and well-being: a review. Int J Nurs Res, 8:127-130.
• Satıcı SA, Gocet-Tekin E, Deniz ME, Satıcı B (2022) Doomscrolling scale: its association with personality traits, psychological distress, social media use, and wellbeing. Appl Res Qual Life, 18:833-847.
• Shabahang R, Aruguete MS, Shim H (2021) Online news addiction: future anxiety, fear of missing out on news, and interpersonal trust contribute to excessive online news consumption. Online J Commun Media Technol, 11:e202105.
• Shabahang R, Kim S, Hosseinkhanzadeh AA, Aruguete MS, Kakabaraee K (2023) “Give your thumb a break” from surfing tragic posts: potential corrosive consequences of social media users’ doomscrolling. Media Psychol, 26:460-479.
• Sharma M (2022) Doomscrolling: Eye pupillometry with smartphone camera and a eye tracker (Master thesis). Weimar, Bauhaus-Universitat Weimar.
• Sharma B, Lee SS, Johnson BK (2022) The dark at the end of the tunnel: doomscrolling on social media newsfeeds. Technol Mind Behav, 3:1-13.
• Sharma MK, Anand N, Ahuja S, Thakur PC, Mondal I, Singh P et al. (2020) Digital burnout: COVID‐19 lockdown mediates excessive technology use stress. World Social Psychiatry, 2:171‐172.
• Silver RC, Holman EA, Andersen JP, Poulin M, McIntosh DN, Gil-Rivas V (2013) Mental-and physical-health effects of acute exposure to media images of the september 11, 2001, attacks and the Iraq war. Psychol Sci, 24:1623-1634.
• Soroka S, Fournier P, Nir L (2019) Cross-national evidence of a negativity bias in psychophysiological reactions to news. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 116:18888-18892.
• Szabo A, Hopkinson KL (2007) Negative psychological effects of watching the news in the television: relaxation or another intervention may be needed to buffer them!. Int J Behav Med, 14:57-62.
• Thorson K, Cotter K, Medeiros M, Pak C (2021) Algorithmic inference, political interest, and exposure to news and politics on facebook. Inf Commun Soc, 24:183-200.
• Wathelet M, Duhem S, Vaiva G, Baubet T, Habran E, Veerapa E et al. (2020) Factors associated with mental health disorders among university students in France confined during the COVID-19 pandemic. JAMA Netw Open, 3:e2025591.
• Watts S (2020) “The week in tech: how to stop coronavirus doomscrolling? https://www.healthcentral.com/mental-health/what-is-doomscrolling-and-how-to-stop?legacy=ew (Accessed 18.11.2020).
• Van Drunen M, Helberger N, Bastian M (2019) Know your algorithm: what media organizations need to explain to their users about news personalization. International Data Privacy Law, 9:220-235.
• VanderWeele TJ, Brooks AC (2020) A public health approach to negative news media: the 3-to-1 solution. Am J Health Promot, 37:447-449.
• Varma MM, Chen D, Lin X, Aknin L, Hu X (2023) Prosocial behavior promotes positive emotion during the COVID-19 pandemic. Emotion, 23:538-553.