Breaking the obsessive news-checking cycle

It’s easy to become obsessed with checking the news at the moment. We went from immediately wanting to know what was happening with bushfires, to checking the daily Covid number, to staying updated with the Black Lives Matter protests, then back to chasing rumours of when lockdown might lift… it goes on.

It’s been called ‘doomscrolling’. But if it’s so unpleasant, why is it so hard to stop? Is it because we can’t escape it (you’d have to deactivate every social media account and avoid every workplace conversation)? Is it because we’re genuinely worried about our safety and those around us? Is it to feel connected to the world while we live through this digitally mediated isolation? These reasons make sense to me.

But we also know that news providers are increasingly using the tools of psychology to build addictiveness into their content. Certain design elements and behavioural economics principles are used to encourage habit formation.

I don’t think doomscrolling can be pinned down to a single cause – it’s a mix of all of the above. While I’d like to see pressure on news providers to treat our psyches with a bit more responsibility, we’re probably on our own for the moment.

This article by Dr. Jud Brewer offers a strategy. After checking the news, take a moment to check in with yourself: how do you feel? Better? Worse? Satiated, or compelled to seek out more? What did you get out of it? This helps your brain see how unrewarding compulsive news-checking is, and breaks the cycle.