Quick tips
- Bury di app few taps away.
- Charge your phone outside di bedroom.
- Before you scroll, name wetin you actually want.
E dey usually start with reason. You open your phone to check weather, or one message, or whether di thing wey dey worry you bad reach how you fear am. Den di feed go take over. One alarming headline dey lead to another, your thumb dey keep moving by itself, and somewhere inside there you stop to dey read for information and you start to dey read because you no fit really stop. By di time you look up, your jaw don tight and nothing don solve.
Dat pattern don get name now. People dey call am doomscrolling: di pull to keep dey consume bad news long pass di point wey e dey help you, even as e dey make you feel worse. If you don do am, you no weak and you no broke. You dey use one device wey dem build, very deliberately, make e hard to drop, exactly for di moments when your guard low pass.
Why your brain dey keep bite di bait
Part of dis one na ancient wiring. Human attention dey lean towards threat. Our ancestors wey notice di rustle for di grass and assume di worst dey usually survive longer pass di ones wey just ignore am, so we inherit brains wey dey treat bad news as urgent and good news as optional. Dat tilt get name, negativity bias, and screen wey full of disasters dey land on am like key inside lock.
Di other part na design. Endless feed no get bottom and no get natural stopping point, so di small cue wey for normally tell you "dat one don do" no dey ever come. Di page just dey keep refill. Add di fact say di most enraging, frightening content na im dey usually travel furthest, and you don get one machine wey dey serve you di exact material wey your threat-detector no fit ignore, with no edge to bump into.
Den di trap wey dey under all of am. When you dey anxious, to scroll dey feel like say you dey do something about di thing wey dey worry you. E dey feel like say you dey stay informed, dey stay ready, dey stay safe. But di relief no dey ever come, because one more update dey always dey. Anxiety dey drive di checking, di checking dey feed di anxiety, and di loop dey tighten. Clinicians wey dey study dis thing describe am as habit wey fit run almost completely on autopilot. No be say you dey decide to scroll. You don stop to decide at all.
Dis one really dey cost you something
E for easy make person just wave dis one off like say na just modern annoyance. Di research talk say e big pass dat.
One team for Texas Tech survey around 1,100 adults about dia news habits and dem find say about one in six show signs of wetin dem call severely problematic news consumption: news wey dey intrude for daily life, wey hard to pull away from, wey dey crowd out other things. People for dat group report far higher rates of poor mental and physical health pass everybody else. Another work wey build one "doomscrolling scale" don link di behavior to higher psychological distress and lower well-being, life satisfaction, and sense of balance.
Di everyday version quieter but e familiar. Sleep wey no wan come because you check your phone for bed. One low, buzzing dread wey dey follow you enter di next morning. Vex with di people wey dey di room while your attention dey somewhere for screen. None of dat one na character flaw. Na wetin dey happen when you keep dey pour alarm inside nervous system wey no get any way to act on most of am.
Small changes wey dey loosen di grip
You no need to quit your phone or swear off di news. Wetin dey work na to make di scroll small less automatic and small more chosen. Small things wey worth to try, roughly in order of how easy dem be.
Put friction back inside
Di feed dey work because e no get friction. So add small.
- Move di apps wey dey suck you in comot from your home screen, or put dem inside folder wey dey few taps away. Di extra second dey often enough to wake you up before you don start.
- Turn off news and social notifications. Every red badge na invitation to come back in. You fit still check on purpose; na just say dem no go summon you.
- Switch your screen to grayscale during di hours wey you dey usually spiral. Gray feed dey far less magnetic pass bright one, and e dey clear signal to your brain say you dey inside different mode.
Give am time and place
Doomscrolling dey thrive for di cracks: for bed, for di couch, for toilet, for queue. Try give news one container instead. Pick one window, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes once or twice a day, sidon, catch up, and den stop. To read di news for set time, dey sit up, na completely different act from absorbing am while you lie down for midnight.
Di single most protective version of dis one na to keep di phone comot from di bedroom. Cheap alarm clock mean say you no need am for di nightstand, wey dey remove both di last scroll of di night and di first one of di morning. Dose two na often di worst.
Catch yourself for di act
Most scrolling na invisible to di person wey dey do am. Di skill to build na to notice.
- When you reach for di phone, pause for one breath and ask wetin you actually dey look for. Sometimes real answer dey. Often di honest one na "I dey feel anxious and I want do something with my hands."
- If na di second kind, name di feeling instead of to feed am. "I dey fear" or "e don too much for me" na more useful thing to talk to yourself pass another twenty headlines.
- Den do something physical with di next sixty seconds. Stand up, stretch, get glass of water, step outside. You dey give di restless energy another exit.
None of dis ones need to be perfect. Di point no be say make you never scroll. Na to scroll on purpose more often pass on autopilot.
Tend to di dread wey dey underneath
Sometimes di news no be really di problem; na di most available outlet for one anxiety wey dey look for where e go land. If you fit act on one worry, do one concrete thing about am and make dat one do for di day. If you no fit act on am, wey be true for most of wetin dey cross feed, den di kindest move na to stop to pretend say another scroll go help. To talk am through with friend, to go outside, or to do something with your hands dey usually settle body wey stuck for alert mode far better pass how more information dey do.
When e big pass ordinary habit
Dis steps dey help plenty people get dia evenings and dia sleep back. Sometimes dem no dey enough, and dat one worth make you take serious rather dan to just push through.
If di urge to check feel genuinely outside your control, if e dey empty out your sleep, your work, or your relationships, or if di dread wey e dey stir up no dey lift even when di phone don down, dat one dey point to something wey self-help article no fit fix on its own. Di same thing go for any stretch where di world feel unbearable and dat feeling no wan pass. To reach out to doctor or therapist no be overreaction. Anxiety and low mood dey common and dem fit treat am, and professional fit help you sort out whether di scrolling na di trouble or na symptom of am. To ask for dat help na one of di more clear-headed things wey you fit do, and you no need to wait until things worse before you do am.
Sources
- Cleveland Clinic, How to Finally Stop Doomscrolling
- EurekAlert / Texas Tech University, News addiction linked to not only poor mental wellbeing but physical health too
- PubMed, Caught in a Dangerous World: Problematic News Consumption and Its Relationship to Mental and Physical Ill-Being
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, Doomscrolling Scale: its Association with Personality Traits, Psychological Distress, Social Media Use, and Wellbeing