Speaker 1: Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
Speaker 1: the world, it is so great to have you here,
Speaker 1: back for another episode as we, of course break down
Speaker 1: the psychology of our twenties. It is a pretty wild
Speaker 1: thought to realize that we have more information in our
Speaker 1: fingertips than any generation ever before. We are more in
Speaker 1: touch any terrible news story, any terrible tragedy, any groundbreaking discovery,
Speaker 1: niche profile piece like. We can access that from our
Speaker 1: phones at any hour, in any instance, and it's great
Speaker 1: in many many ways. We are very informed people. But
Speaker 1: it is quite frankly, not something that humans have necessarily
Speaker 1: evolved to deal with. I was watching this YouTube video
Speaker 1: the other day, very very random. It's going to sound strange,
Speaker 1: but it was like a day in the life of
Speaker 1: a medieval peasant. And I was watching this video and
Speaker 1: I was thinking, this individual would have only had to
Speaker 1: worry about the world that was ten to twenty kilometers
Speaker 1: around him or her. They would only have the information
Speaker 1: given to them by the church, or by their neighbors,
Speaker 1: or by whoever the king, their queen. They didn't know
Speaker 1: what was going on halfway across the world in Persia
Speaker 1: or Rome, and how that would affect them. They didn't
Speaker 1: know about the natural disasters in Asia or Africa, like
Speaker 1: the discoveries in Australia. It seemed almost a lot simpler
Speaker 1: that way. And it is such a privilege to have
Speaker 1: access to the information that we have now, and it's
Speaker 1: definitely improved the ways in which we are very conscious
Speaker 1: global citizens. But it has its downsides. And as people
Speaker 1: in our twenties, we are one of the first generations
Speaker 1: to have grown up this way. We have grown up
Speaker 1: always having this constant information so in the palm of
Speaker 1: our hands, and it's given rise to this phenomenon known
Speaker 1: as doomscrolling. Doom scrolling has a few meanings, but at
Speaker 1: its core, it is when we accidentally or consciously spend
Speaker 1: way too much time consuming online negative content, whether it
Speaker 1: is news articles, news contents about tragedies and terrors, or
Speaker 1: just actually hateful content like nastiness in any form on
Speaker 1: the Internet. You know, seeing me in comments, seeing cruel
Speaker 1: videos that are constantly like somehow thrown in our face
Speaker 1: by the algorithm that is not policed. This has a
Speaker 1: very deep, yet i would say hidden, emotional and psychological
Speaker 1: consequence for us. And we all know that we don't
Speaker 1: feel very good when we spend too much time online,
Speaker 1: But I think we also need to get better at
Speaker 1: labeling why that is and controlling the reasons why we
Speaker 1: do it. Anyways, you know, despite feeling like all this dark, terrible,
Speaker 1: horrible news content is making us feel worse about ourselves,
Speaker 1: we often can't stop. And I'm one of those people.
Speaker 1: I know that this is going to make my mental
Speaker 1: state worse, but I cannot look away. I keep looking
Speaker 1: for new information. In part, I think that it's because
Speaker 1: we are addicted to our phones, but also there is
Speaker 1: this element of seeking out more information is a way
Speaker 1: that we soothe ourselves, and in this day and age,
Speaker 1: like when everything is quite stressful and there are a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons to feel unhappy about the world. By
Speaker 1: scrolling on our phones and using social media, that is
Speaker 1: a form of distraction from those feelings. But it can
Speaker 1: also end up meaning that we are more constantly exposed
Speaker 1: to situations that are honestly quite harmful to be viewing
Speaker 1: all the time. We also then feel this obligation right like,
Speaker 1: I want to be informed, I want to know what's
Speaker 1: going on. You can kind of see the trap that
Speaker 1: we're falling into. It's the same formula for any toxic habit.
Speaker 1: It is both like the devil and our savior. Doom
Speaker 1: scrolling and like reading the news or being informed makes
Speaker 1: us feel better for a second, and then it makes
Speaker 1: us feel worse, and then we try to feel better
Speaker 1: by going back and scrolling some more, and we get
Speaker 1: back to the same place that we started. So today
Speaker 1: I want to focus in specifically on a rise in
Speaker 1: doom scrolling, how it has been slowly changing our brains
Speaker 1: and how we think about the world, especially as people
Speaker 1: in our twenties, and what we can kind of do
Speaker 1: about it. You know, we are seeing all these consequences,
Speaker 1: but we also don't want to be someone who is
Speaker 1: out of touch. We want to know what's going on.
Speaker 1: So how do we get into a healthy space and
Speaker 1: a healthy place with scrolling, with the news, with accessing
Speaker 1: the internet, whatever it is? What are the alternatives excited
Speaker 1: for this episode? This is something that I personally needed
Speaker 1: to hear about. I know that there is like a
Speaker 1: lot of just a lot of tension and stress and
Speaker 1: like political angst in the world at the moment, understandably,
Speaker 1: and this is an important topic to talk about in
Speaker 1: this time because when we speak about mental health, it
Speaker 1: is a huge contributor. So, without further ado, my lovely listeners,
Speaker 1: let's get into the psychology of doom scrolling. So doom
Speaker 1: scrolling we have a definition already. It's basically when we
Speaker 1: spend an excessive time consuming or being shown negative news
Speaker 1: content or online content that ultimately ultimately makes us feel
Speaker 1: pretty pessimistic. But it's also a really new term, and
Speaker 1: it was coined during the pandemic. So I am sure
Speaker 1: we all clearly remember how we were glued to our
Speaker 1: phones for any type of news or updates to do
Speaker 1: with lockdowns, case numbers, vaccine rollout during that like that,
Speaker 1: during that time, during twenty twenty to twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: I have very distinct memories actually of checking the case
Speaker 1: numbers in my area, like in my city, three four, five,
Speaker 1: ten times a day to see if they'd gone down,
Speaker 1: and reading every article, reading any press release that could
Speaker 1: potentially tell me that numbers were decreasing or we like
Speaker 1: had a cure, which neither of those things were never true.
Speaker 1: So basically, during that time, researchers and a little psychologists
Speaker 1: were seeing that because everything was so unknown and so scary,
Speaker 1: we just wanted as much information as we could get.
Speaker 1: We just wanted to know more. It was very soothing
Speaker 1: in a strange way. But we also had all this
Speaker 1: empty time and space to consume more and more social
Speaker 1: media content than ever before, and we were taking full
Speaker 1: advantage of that. And these two kind of factors are
Speaker 1: what led to doom scrollings, what led to people just
Speaker 1: feeling completely overwhelmed by some of the content that they
Speaker 1: were accessing. Now, obviously we are no longer actively in
Speaker 1: a pandemic, but there are still a lot of things
Speaker 1: that have taken place in you know, the last few months.
Speaker 1: It's ironic, I'm literally recording this like a week after
Speaker 1: the US election, and I'm sure a lot of us
Speaker 1: are doom scrolling at the moment and will be in
Speaker 1: the next few months. But if you want some numbers
Speaker 1: around just how common this is, twenty twenty four survey
Speaker 1: that interviewed five thousand American adults who are pretty good
Speaker 1: sample size found that about thirty one percent of adults
Speaker 1: will doom scroll on a regular basis. But this percentage
Speaker 1: is a lot bigger the younger you are, so for millennials,
Speaker 1: it's forty six percent. For gen Z it's fifty one percent.
Speaker 1: That's half of us, half of us. And honestly, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not even surprised by that number, considering all the
Speaker 1: people I talk to who are like, yeah, of course
Speaker 1: I feel really burdened by this. Of course I can't
Speaker 1: stop as well. It's a very very common thing. Something
Speaker 1: we have got to take note of here though, before
Speaker 1: we go any further, is that there are actually two
Speaker 1: types of doom scrolling. There is passive and active. So
Speaker 1: the passive doom scroll is when you can't you know,
Speaker 1: you're not really going in search of any more information.
Speaker 1: You're not seeking out negative news. You may not even
Speaker 1: be on like a news website, but you find it anyway,
Speaker 1: especially on Instagram, especially on TikTok or Twitter, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: We have, like in our normal environments, we have semi
Speaker 1: like a little bit of control over what we see.
Speaker 1: Like when you're in your home, you get to choose
Speaker 1: the furniture, you get to choose the people that you
Speaker 1: invite in, you get to choose all those things. You know,
Speaker 1: you have a way of controlling your environments and based
Speaker 1: on your preferences and based on what you like. When
Speaker 1: you go online, you do not have that control. You
Speaker 1: have no control over what you're going to see, even
Speaker 1: if you try and train your algorithm to be suited
Speaker 1: to what you want to consume. About one third of us,
Speaker 1: according to a recent study by the National Institute of Health,
Speaker 1: we get our news online even when we don't follow
Speaker 1: news sites, because it pops up, because it's the thing
Speaker 1: that is noteworthy, because lots of people interact with that content.
Speaker 1: And I think even that is shocking and its own right.
Speaker 1: A third of us using social media as our primary
Speaker 1: news source. But that's kind of the day and age
Speaker 1: that we are in, and news sites and newspapers have
Speaker 1: adapted to us, have adapted to that, and you know,
Speaker 1: I guess it's better than nothing. But it's not just news, right,
Speaker 1: It's not just the news. It's watching an Instagram reel
Speaker 1: and opening the comments and seeing all the trolls. It
Speaker 1: is the videos that are toxic or mocking or mean
Speaker 1: that also leaves a negative mark, especially considering how high
Speaker 1: a lot of our screen times are at the moment.
Speaker 1: You know, if you spend two to three hours on
Speaker 1: social media a day, which is the average amount that
Speaker 1: people spend a lot of stuff is going to be
Speaker 1: filtering through a lot of stuff that you know. Can
Speaker 1: you just imagine this. It's like you're scrolling, You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: beautiful picture of my friend, picture of a celebrity, picture
Speaker 1: of a puppy twenty dead in landslide. That is still
Speaker 1: information that is coming into your brain. So that's passive.
Speaker 1: The second type of doom scrolling is active doom scrolling,
Speaker 1: and it's what we typically think of when I say
Speaker 1: doom scrolling. It's like more of a conscious habit of
Speaker 1: constantly scrolling through news headlines and most of the time
Speaker 1: news that isn't very good, because then it wouldn't be noteworthy.
Speaker 1: I will say, we do have to pay attention to
Speaker 1: what is going on in the world, and it is
Speaker 1: important to stay informed, and it's important to know what
Speaker 1: is happening around you in politics, with the environment, with
Speaker 1: foreign policy, with human rights. But we can do this
Speaker 1: in a way that doesn't become crippling. I have a
Speaker 1: friend Erin who has been a guest on the show before.
Speaker 1: We Love Erin, big friend of the show, and she
Speaker 1: I hope she doesn't mind using the story. I don't
Speaker 1: think she will, But she is incredibly invested in climate change,
Speaker 1: in the state in the environment, Like that's what she
Speaker 1: does for work. She protects wetlands in Australia, like she
Speaker 1: goes to protests. She's studying horticulture next year. She's so passionate,
Speaker 1: she's so invested. One of the most beautiful souls and
Speaker 1: most passionate, you know, just souls for these issues. But
Speaker 1: she was telling me, you know how dark that can
Speaker 1: get for her, because she's so drawn to seeking out
Speaker 1: further information, as much information as possible about the state
Speaker 1: of all of these things, about the state of the environment,
Speaker 1: about what species is going extinct, what government is not protecting,
Speaker 1: which habitat, And it's become a bit of a compulsion
Speaker 1: needing to find out more, not wanting to be in
Speaker 1: the dark, and therefore consuming all of the worst content
Speaker 1: and all the worst headlines day in and day out.
Speaker 1: And as her friend, you know, it's it's very hard
Speaker 1: to see because you obviously know she cares a lot,
Speaker 1: and this is an element and an aspect of how
Speaker 1: much she cares. But it can make people incredibly pessimistic.
Speaker 1: Why do we do it other than just the fact
Speaker 1: that we want to know more. Why is it? Well?
Speaker 1: The first reason is that when we feel that we
Speaker 1: know more, we assume that that's going to make us
Speaker 1: more equipped in the future. So even though it's terrible,
Speaker 1: at least we are not in the dark. At least
Speaker 1: it is not uncertain. At least we have all the details.
Speaker 1: So this explanation is really based in anxiety and one
Speaker 1: psychiatrist from the Media Psychology Research Center, he put it
Speaker 1: really really well in an article that I was reading
Speaker 1: when I was researching this episode. What he said was
Speaker 1: that basically, doom scrolling is just a compulsive need to
Speaker 1: try and get answers when we're afraid. And not only
Speaker 1: is it a compulsive need, that's a very human need right,
Speaker 1: more information, more details, that provides more of an illusion
Speaker 1: of security. So doom scrolling is actually this really twisted,
Speaker 1: dark and I would say counterintuitive self soothing behavior. I
Speaker 1: always think about it like, maybe this won't make sense.
Speaker 1: I think it will. When you go through a breakup
Speaker 1: and you keep checking on your ex's social media to
Speaker 1: make sure they're not with someone new, to see who
Speaker 1: they're following. You want to know exactly how their post
Speaker 1: relationship journey is going, even though it's painful. That is
Speaker 1: very similar to what we're doing here, because the alternative
Speaker 1: hypothetical of not knowing that is exponentially worse in our brain.
Speaker 1: And that's anxiety for you. Anxiety. As we know, it
Speaker 1: loves to feed on the empty spaces. It loves to
Speaker 1: feed on the unknown. It loves to feed on a
Speaker 1: lack of answers because that is where it can do
Speaker 1: its most like the most of it's catastrophizing, right, that's
Speaker 1: when it can have the most fun. Like, it's a
Speaker 1: pretty sneaky being. So doom scrolling is just to really
Speaker 1: wrap that up. It's control seeking, it's information seeking for
Speaker 1: the sake of certainty. This behavior is also really rooted
Speaker 1: in our brain's limbic system, according to some recent research
Speaker 1: at Harvard. So you've probably heard of our limbic system before.
Speaker 1: It is basically our lizard brain. It is our old
Speaker 1: animal brain, very ancient part of us. And our limbic
Speaker 1: system is what promotes and is responsible for self preservation.
Speaker 1: It drives our fight or flight response to danger, and
Speaker 1: it is typically what fuels us to scroll for threats.
Speaker 1: You know, we are being hypervigilant. We are scanning the
Speaker 1: danger using the resources that we have now, which is
Speaker 1: the Internet, and the more you scroll, the more you
Speaker 1: feel you need to know. There are two groups who
Speaker 1: are more prone to this than anyone else. According to
Speaker 1: that same paper from Harvard, it's women and it's people
Speaker 1: with the history of trauma. Why is that. It's because
Speaker 1: the need for hyper vigilance in those two populations runs deep.
Speaker 1: It is in our DNA, it is in our bones,
Speaker 1: it is in our memories. And you know, there was
Speaker 1: this really it was fascinating, but it was also just
Speaker 1: actually quite devastating. It was a study into refugees and
Speaker 1: refugees who had recently immigrated to a new country and
Speaker 1: the rate at which dooms growing happened in these communities,
Speaker 1: and what they found was that it was so much higher,
Speaker 1: especially when you think about, you know, news from their
Speaker 1: home countries. You know, they may still have family there,
Speaker 1: they may still have loved ones there, and the fear
Speaker 1: and the need for knowledge really extends beyond them. And
Speaker 1: it's not like the news industry or journalists are helping
Speaker 1: us through this. Even for the average person, they know
Speaker 1: that we are more drawn in by news stories that
Speaker 1: elicit a sense of urgency and fear our brains are
Speaker 1: trained to pay attention to those into instances and stimulus
Speaker 1: and environments and whatever that is creating that kind of
Speaker 1: emotional reaction, and so they publish more of that stuff,
Speaker 1: They make the titles more grappy. Everything seems disastrous, and
Speaker 1: we're paying so much more attention to that compared to
Speaker 1: the overall picture of what the world is really like.
Speaker 1: So why do we do this? Well, firstly, we do
Speaker 1: this because of something called the negativity bias. The negativity
Speaker 1: bias is basically this cognitive bias whereby we tend to
Speaker 1: pay more attention and we remember negative information more than
Speaker 1: positive information because it's more important for our survival. And
Speaker 1: one way that we are really seeing this and that
Speaker 1: we know that this applies to news that we see
Speaker 1: on our phone or just news in general, is because
Speaker 1: of some amazing researchers at McGill in in Canada. So
Speaker 1: these researchers invited some participants to come into their lab
Speaker 1: and they said, come into our lab. We're going to
Speaker 1: do this study on eye tracking. We just want to see,
Speaker 1: like how your eyes move in response to images. Of
Speaker 1: course that's not true. What they wanted to know was
Speaker 1: are we automatically and immediately drawn more to good news,
Speaker 1: neutral news or bad news or is it just all
Speaker 1: the same? Is it just you know, our brain scans
Speaker 1: from top to bottom. So basically, they had these people
Speaker 1: in a room and they were like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: before we like get into the actual experiment, just pick
Speaker 1: like some news articles that you want to read while
Speaker 1: you wait, like you can just have a little browse.
Speaker 1: They were then asked to read them. It didn't really
Speaker 1: matter if they actually read them. It was just kind
Speaker 1: of like to keep up appearances. And then they did
Speaker 1: the study and what they found was that overwhelmingly, when
Speaker 1: they were given this site, and there was an equal
Speaker 1: amount of negative, positive and neutral stories, overwhelmingly the place
Speaker 1: our eyes go to first worthy most scary, negative, distressing headlines,
Speaker 1: things about corruption, death, natural disasters, and not the neutral stories.
Speaker 1: And when they asked them afterwards, and this is the
Speaker 1: second component to this study that is so interesting, When
Speaker 1: they said, okay, do you think that the news these
Speaker 1: days is it more good? Is it more bad? Is
Speaker 1: it more you know, neutral, almost all of them were like,
Speaker 1: oh no, the news is so bad. Everything is going
Speaker 1: so wrong at the moment. You know, the majority of
Speaker 1: the stories I saw on that news site were negative,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that it was completely even we grab
Speaker 1: onto negative information because it is novel, because it is noteworthy,
Speaker 1: and because we think that it's more important. I think
Speaker 1: this is really important to be aware of whenever you're
Speaker 1: surfing like the ABC or the Guardian or the New
Speaker 1: York Times or whatever it is. I think that it's
Speaker 1: not all bad, but we are tricked by both external
Speaker 1: forces like the mainstream media, but also internal forces like
Speaker 1: our negativity bias into believing. So I want to give
Speaker 1: you one final explanation as to why before we go
Speaker 1: into how we can stop it, and it actually comes
Speaker 1: down to the psychology of how social media apps are designed.
Speaker 1: No surprises here. Social media is addictive. Probably also not
Speaker 1: a surprise. It was made that way because your attention
Speaker 1: is money. That's the whole business model of these apps.
Speaker 1: The more they can keep your attention, the more that
Speaker 1: you will buy things from ads. So it's really don't
Speaker 1: beat yourself up if you find it really hard to
Speaker 1: set those digital boundaries like they are doing everything in
Speaker 1: their power to make sure that doesn't happen. Instagram and Facebook. Actually,
Speaker 1: I remember at one stage I read an article about
Speaker 1: how they had literal neuroscientists on their payroll on their teams.
Speaker 1: They were paid employees, and their job was b basically
Speaker 1: like tell us how we can keep people hooked. And
Speaker 1: one of the ways that they were like, hey, this
Speaker 1: is a way you can do this, it's called the
Speaker 1: infinite scroll. And this plays a really important part in
Speaker 1: why we doom scroll. So the infinite scroll means that
Speaker 1: we are never going to run out of content to see.
Speaker 1: I remember, like back in the day, in like the
Speaker 1: early like twenty tens, when Instagram was first released, like
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, you would go on Instagram and
Speaker 1: when everybody, when you'd seen everything, when basically everyone that
Speaker 1: you followed had posted within the last five days and
Speaker 1: you'd seen it, it would just be the end of
Speaker 1: the screen, like you couldn't go any further. You would
Speaker 1: hit like a wall. And nowadays, no, no, no, that
Speaker 1: is not happening. That is not happening. They do not
Speaker 1: want you to exit the app. They want you to
Speaker 1: stay on the app. And so you'll start seeing recommended content,
Speaker 1: You'll start seeing all this other stuff that you're not
Speaker 1: necessarily following, but you stay hooked because it's just like
Speaker 1: all this dopamine flooding into your brain. It's junk food
Speaker 1: for the mind. And I say this metaphor quite literally.
Speaker 1: The information that we feed our brains just like what
Speaker 1: we feed our body. It really matters. You become a
Speaker 1: product of what your brain is receiving, and that really
Speaker 1: influences your worldview. And if you are a doom scroller,
Speaker 1: I'm included in that, so there is no criticism here.
Speaker 1: But if you are a doom scroller, what you're receiving
Speaker 1: is going to be pessimistic and it's going to be bleak,
Speaker 1: and that results in a lot of anxiety, a lot
Speaker 1: of like apathy, like oh my god, who cares? Like
Speaker 1: the world is just so terrible. It results in a
Speaker 1: lot of existential anxiety, which is like a sense that
Speaker 1: like the world is just there's no point, what does
Speaker 1: life even mean? It can also give us something that
Speaker 1: we call popcorn brain. I don't know if you've heard
Speaker 1: about this recently, you will be hearing about it more
Speaker 1: in the future. But I read another article I think
Speaker 1: either in Yale or Harvard Magazine. Can't remember. I'll keep
Speaker 1: you updated if I find it, But basically this article
Speaker 1: is like popcorn brain happens when you spend too much
Speaker 1: time online and your brain is actually so overstimulated with
Speaker 1: information that it almost feels like it's popping. It feels
Speaker 1: so overstimulated that you're like pop pop, like you're moving
Speaker 1: from one thing to another, and like it's just fast
Speaker 1: and fast and fast. That is not normal, and that
Speaker 1: makes it really hard to engage with the real world,
Speaker 1: and it makes us feel really anxious. And feeling anxious
Speaker 1: and numb about the world is not normal, and it's
Speaker 1: not something that I think we should normalize, and it's
Speaker 1: not something that I think should define our life. Luckily, though,
Speaker 1: the same way that we get trapped in a doom
Speaker 1: scrolling cycle, we can also get out of it, and
Speaker 1: we can find a way to have a healthy relationship
Speaker 1: with our news, with our content, with our phones, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. So I want to talk about how we
Speaker 1: can find our way out and the kind of behavioral
Speaker 1: and mental shifts that can get us there. After this
Speaker 1: short break, I'm just going to quickly repeat what I
Speaker 1: said before, because I think it's a really important point.
Speaker 1: You can still be informed and know what's going on
Speaker 1: and not be addicted to the negative news cycle. Or
Speaker 1: you can have both. You can still acknowledge that the
Speaker 1: world is harsh and cruel at times and feel happy, joyful, grateful,
Speaker 1: not despite of it, but in spite of it. Everything
Speaker 1: might say more ful. Well, you are going to be
Speaker 1: the reason that someone doesn't think that today. You are
Speaker 1: going to pour a little bit more harmony, a little
Speaker 1: bit more peace, a little bit more kindness into the world.
Speaker 1: And this is something that really helped me a few
Speaker 1: months back, maybe like six months ago, and I discussed
Speaker 1: it on the podcast at the time, but I got
Speaker 1: into a pretty heavy, dark headspace around my social media consumption,
Speaker 1: and I was just convinced, based on what I was
Speaker 1: seeing in the comments that I was receiving, that everyone
Speaker 1: was just me, Everyone was just judgmental. It was everywhere,
Speaker 1: and I know now I was selectively paying attention to
Speaker 1: what was confirming my bias. But one of the ways
Speaker 1: that I got out of this was really starting to
Speaker 1: leave positivity where I saw negativity. If I saw a
Speaker 1: bunch of trolls, you know, I'd make sure to comment
Speaker 1: something nice, that kind of thing. It's all about diluting
Speaker 1: the bad, sad, downright depressing stuff with a little bit
Speaker 1: of light like drop by drop. You know, imagine that
Speaker 1: you have a full glass of wine and it's red,
Speaker 1: and you know it's very hard to see through murky,
Speaker 1: and then you put it under a tap and you
Speaker 1: keep the tap on slowly that wine glass is diluted
Speaker 1: and the water going into that wine glass. That is
Speaker 1: your kindness when it seems really really gloomy. Part of
Speaker 1: it seems so is because we feel like we can't
Speaker 1: do anything about it. We feel like we can't fix
Speaker 1: the world's problems. And at times that's true. You can't
Speaker 1: fix the whole world, but you can fix your circle.
Speaker 1: You can fix your part of the universe, your little
Speaker 1: corner of the world, by doing it kind to people,
Speaker 1: doing it really really rough, by donating to charity, by
Speaker 1: donating your time, by cooking for your elderly neighbors, by
Speaker 1: planting native plants in your garden or on your balcony.
Speaker 1: That is the most beautiful way, in my mind, to
Speaker 1: counteract a mindset that says the world is fucked based
Speaker 1: on doom scrolling. It's to say, yeah, the world is fucked,
Speaker 1: but where I am, what I choose to do, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to be a representation of that. Just because
Speaker 1: the news is bad doesn't mean that I'm going to
Speaker 1: take that and mean that I'm going to make it worse.
Speaker 1: You know, I have a friend who has her garden
Speaker 1: like filled with flowers just for her honeybees, And it's
Speaker 1: just one of the first things I do when I
Speaker 1: go over to her house, Like, she has these poppies
Speaker 1: that are like specifically for honey bees, bumblebees, whatever you
Speaker 1: call them, And I love checking on her bees. It's
Speaker 1: just like so pretty and it's just like, oh, there
Speaker 1: is something that's alive. There is something that's good. My
Speaker 1: friend has honey bees in her backyard, Like yay, that's
Speaker 1: a great news story in my life. You can also
Speaker 1: really help yourself break the toxic negative cycle that contributes
Speaker 1: to doom scrolling by rethinking the content that you see.
Speaker 1: You know, make a conscious decision to start following positive
Speaker 1: news sites or newsletters or pages that is, like you
Speaker 1: diluting the negative news. I love, for example, the good
Speaker 1: News movement, which started during the pandemic to kind of
Speaker 1: counteract the very thing that we are talking about today,
Speaker 1: which is doom scrolling. I also like the Dodo It's
Speaker 1: it's not really news, it's just animal stories. That's it.
Speaker 1: It's just really cute animal stories. And you know what,
Speaker 1: it's really delightful to see. The Good News Network is
Speaker 1: also another really really good one positivenews dot com. You know,
Speaker 1: you're not limiting yourself, you are diluting it. You have
Speaker 1: to start showing your mind, giving your mind healthy examples
Speaker 1: that it's not all bad, even if that remains your
Speaker 1: prevailing emotion for a while. Part of getting out of
Speaker 1: that headspace is really offering alternative information and evidence to
Speaker 1: our brain, feeding it well, feeding it with nutritious information,
Speaker 1: making sure that your diet isn't just rich your media
Speaker 1: diet isn't just rich in all of this really intense information,
Speaker 1: and that's the only thing that you're giving your brain.
Speaker 1: It's also really important to have balance there. And I'm
Speaker 1: going to carry on the metaphor of food and eating
Speaker 1: and feeding, but having a balanced informational diet. And this
Speaker 1: was something that was introduced to me by someone I
Speaker 1: interviewed recently who's coming on for our December twelve Days
Speaker 1: of Guests. I won't spoil who it is, but she
Speaker 1: was talking about how you can't just give yourself one
Speaker 1: source of news or information that is what gets us
Speaker 1: stuck in informational bubbles. That's what gets us stuck in
Speaker 1: only seeing the world in a certain way, not being
Speaker 1: able to think about other people opinions. And it also
Speaker 1: means that we're only going to see a negative perspective
Speaker 1: from one side of things. So having a few newspapers
Speaker 1: that you read, having your news podcast, but then also
Speaker 1: including something bright, something less serious, having some fiction, having
Speaker 1: like a fun book that you're reading on the side
Speaker 1: something less serious. That is a really important way to
Speaker 1: diversify what you are consuming so that it doesn't just
Speaker 1: all become stale and all become one way. Now, I
Speaker 1: also want to turn to kind of like curtailing or
Speaker 1: rethinking our social media habits, because I think this is
Speaker 1: a huge culprit in passive doom scrolling. This is one
Speaker 1: we really need to zoom zoom in on. You know,
Speaker 1: if we're going to talk about how to stop doom scrolling,
Speaker 1: we can't talk about that without talking about how to
Speaker 1: be have a healthier usage of social media. And I'll
Speaker 1: start with one of my favorite reminders for how to
Speaker 1: do this. If you want to change anything, you have
Speaker 1: to start by changing how that thing shows up in
Speaker 1: your routine. You cannot just think your way into a
Speaker 1: happier mental state. You can't say, you know, yeah, it'd
Speaker 1: be nice to control my social media. I really wish
Speaker 1: I would get to that, and then not do that
Speaker 1: because it's just I've tried it, it doesn't work, You're
Speaker 1: not going to do it. I think one of the
Speaker 1: big reasons that we have a negative relationship with social
Speaker 1: media and the news is because we let it be
Speaker 1: in control rather than having good mental hygiene habits. And yes,
Speaker 1: I did say hygiene, because that is how I like
Speaker 1: to see it. You know, you wash your face every night,
Speaker 1: You brush your teeth hopefully please do that. You know,
Speaker 1: you wash your towels, you shower, You take care of
Speaker 1: yourself physically. Now it's time to apply those same hygiene
Speaker 1: routines to taking care of yourself mentally, specifically in terms
Speaker 1: of your relationship with your phone. So here are some
Speaker 1: tried and tested measures for having better social media hygiene
Speaker 1: better mental hygiene. Right off the phone off before bed.
Speaker 1: Your phone cannot be the last thing you see before
Speaker 1: you sleep, and it definitely cannot be the first thing
Speaker 1: that you see when you wake up in the morning,
Speaker 1: because that just means that you are literally plugged in
Speaker 1: day and night. There is never a break. The moment
Speaker 1: you are conscious, you are consuming content. The moment before
Speaker 1: you are unconscious, you're consuming content. So sleep with it
Speaker 1: in a separate room and just buy an alarm clock,
Speaker 1: because I know that's a big reason why a lot
Speaker 1: of people are like, oh, I have to have my
Speaker 1: phone in my room because my alarm. Go to your
Speaker 1: local reject shop, go to your local A two dollars store,
Speaker 1: go to go on Facebook marketplace, find an alarm clock,
Speaker 1: like a good old fashioned alarm clock, and start using
Speaker 1: that instead. You will just see amazing changes. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize how anxious I was by having my phone just
Speaker 1: right next to my bedside. And the other thing that
Speaker 1: I did was I started doing one thing in the
Speaker 1: morning before I went on my phone. Obviously, I work
Speaker 1: for myself, so there is like big tendency, and it's
Speaker 1: like the most toxic habit, bad habit that I need
Speaker 1: to break. I'm very bad at it, but I'm getting
Speaker 1: there slowly. And it's that before I go on my phone,
Speaker 1: I do something else. I do something else so that
Speaker 1: I don't check my emails. And of course once I
Speaker 1: check my emails, I check my social media, and of
Speaker 1: course once I check my social media, suddenly there is
Speaker 1: something that has happened overnight, like in the US or
Speaker 1: in the UK, or across the world. Because I live
Speaker 1: in Australia, that is like completely you know, torn the
Speaker 1: world apart. So that is really really important. Social media
Speaker 1: tim is. I don't think they always work because you
Speaker 1: can just just kind of dismiss them. How I get
Speaker 1: around that is that I actually delete my social media
Speaker 1: from my phone between ten am to four pm during
Speaker 1: the week. I definitely have the urge, and I even
Speaker 1: notice that, like I go to pick up my phone
Speaker 1: to like check my social media, to like aimlessly scroll
Speaker 1: or to like check like a new site. But because
Speaker 1: there is that additional level of difficulty, like I would
Speaker 1: have to read download those apps onto my phone, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm just not going to do that, and I stop myself.
Speaker 1: It's like I have created this point of questioning, this
Speaker 1: point of inflection where I have to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: do I actually want to do that? Probably not. I
Speaker 1: made a conscious decision earlier in the day to not
Speaker 1: let myself do this today. I don't want to go
Speaker 1: against her, go for a walk instead. That's a great
Speaker 1: way as well, just to feel a little bit less
Speaker 1: way down as being outside and returning to the environments
Speaker 1: that we are meant to be, and so we feel
Speaker 1: more human and we experience the sensations that make us
Speaker 1: human and make us natural creatures of this environment. You know,
Speaker 1: fresh air, the smell of the trees, seeing nature, seeing
Speaker 1: other people. That is so important when you are feeling
Speaker 1: crippled by anxiety and frustration and angst to do with
Speaker 1: the news. You've got to clock out. You've got to
Speaker 1: take us to back. You've got to go into nature.
Speaker 1: You've got to go into an outdoor environment, leave the
Speaker 1: space and just breathe, experience your senses and disconnect for
Speaker 1: a while. You know, this is not just a U issue.
Speaker 1: This is the result of some serious rapid societal shifts
Speaker 1: and just like changing life of just the whole world
Speaker 1: is changing very quickly in the past few years. You know,
Speaker 1: our parents never had to worry about dooms growing. Maybe
Speaker 1: they had to worry about watching the news for too long,
Speaker 1: but you know only went for two hours that they
Speaker 1: had to watch Brady Bunch. I don't know what was
Speaker 1: on back then. Brady Bunch that we're going to go
Speaker 1: with that. So you know, it is an increasing problem
Speaker 1: for us. We are the first generation that has had
Speaker 1: to find a healthier relationship with it. Who doesn't know
Speaker 1: life without it. I will say, also, get a newspaper.
Speaker 1: I did this for a while when I was like
Speaker 1: living in Melbourne. I would get my newspaper delivered super
Speaker 1: super strange to think that we could do that still,
Speaker 1: but they do still offer that service. And it meant
Speaker 1: that my news wasn't only selective and it wasn't only
Speaker 1: coming from my phone. There are ways around this, and
Speaker 1: there are ways to be aware but not overwhelmed and
Speaker 1: not fearful all the time and not just quite frankly
Speaker 1: depressed and I think doom scrolling. If you want to
Speaker 1: manage it, you have to manage the scrolling part, and
Speaker 1: you have to manage your relationship with your phone and
Speaker 1: that anxious need to seek out more information because it's
Speaker 1: not helping you and it's not leading to a better outcome.
Speaker 1: So hope this has been the encouragement you need to
Speaker 1: rethink those practices. I most certainly hope that you feel
Speaker 1: less alone. I'm there with you a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: what was the statistic fifty one percent of people in
Speaker 1: gen Z, so people in their twenties are experiencing the
Speaker 1: effects of doom scrolling. So there is no shame if
Speaker 1: your digital habits and you'll need to be informed and
Speaker 1: are getting out of hand. You know, I hate to say,
Speaker 1: it's better than not being informed at all, even if
Speaker 1: it feels terrible, and you've already got that down pat
Speaker 1: You've already got the empathy to want to know more.
Speaker 1: Now it is time to have the empathy for yourself
Speaker 1: to have some space in your day to actually just
Speaker 1: be able to process it all and to be able
Speaker 1: to experience life. So if you enjoyed this episode, as always,
Speaker 1: please feel free to leave a five star review on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you are listening right now, make
Speaker 1: sure you are following along. Twelve Days of Guests is
Speaker 1: coming up. That is our December period where we just
Speaker 1: do twelve days of guest episodes with like some of
Speaker 1: my favorite people who I get the privileged interviews, so
Speaker 1: you don't want to miss any of those. Make sure
Speaker 1: that you are following us on Instagram at that Psychology podcast.
Speaker 1: And until next time, stay safe, stay kind, be gentle
Speaker 1: with yourself, please and thank you and we will talk
Speaker 1: very very soon. One