It was about six weeks into my own summer of the crash out that I reached a breaking point. I, quite simply, could no longer spend my evenings doomscrolling.
I’m not too proud to admit that I’m addicted to my phone, but I’d like to think that I had once recovered a little bit. My habit of spending nights glued to the torrent of bad news on Reddit, Twitter, and other social media had peaked during the COVID-19 lockdown, when it seemed every day brought a fresh hell of drama and uncertainty.
But then the world opened up. We could go outside again, I went back to work in an office, and the daily news out of Washington, DC, grew less dire. Sure, I was still watching most television shows with a so-called second-screen, and I definitely spent too long on my phone at night, but it felt a little more balanced, at least in my head.
That didn’t last. We’re back to the chaos and unpredictability of a Trump White House, where scandals abound from the infuriating (anything to do with MAHA) to the somewhat hilarious (group chat gate). And as the internet collectively implodes with yelling and fighting over the fictional love triangle between a girl and her two pseudo-cousin brother suitors, I found myself unable to look away from social media. Even when I swore to myself I’d just try to relax after work, I’d find myself riled up by some post on Reddit or a random Threads thread. It was leaving me perpetually anxious, and a little depressed.
I’m not alone. According to a 2024 article from Harvard Medical School, not only are more people doomscrolling than ever, but women are particularly susceptible. This is because, as Richard Mollica, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School put it, “most violent media is about hurting women and children.” Once we’re sucked in, we can’t look away.
“Stress stokes our primary urge to scroll,” said Aditi Nerurkar, a lecturer in the division of global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School, in the article. “We’re hyper-vigilant and scanning for danger. The more you scroll, the more you feel you need to.”
Of course, this is terrible for our mental and even physical health. The article lists side effects as including “headaches, muscle tension, neck and shoulder pain, low appetite, difficulty sleeping, and even elevated blood pressure,” along with, you know, just feeling sad or angry. According to Dr. Nerurkar, too much doomscrolling can give us something called, worryingly, “popcorn brain.”
“It’s the real biological phenomenon of feeling your brain is popping because you’re being overstimulated online,” she said. “Then it’s hard to engage with the real world, which moves at a much slower pace.”
Well, yikes! Hence, my breaking point. In my moment of rock bottom, I realized something. If I was going to break my habit, I needed to find a way to take my phone out of my hands entirely. I can’t resist the temptation to scroll, even while I’m doing something else like watching a show, so I needed to physically yank it out of my own grasp.
