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My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

allthatjazz.me

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Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#171

Post by joshlemer »

recursive wrote: post #164
mindcrime wrote: post #154

Ugh. I don't necessarily do "doom" scrolling, but lately I have gotten drawn into wasting time on these various stupid "shorts" or "reels" or whatever, mostly on FB. It's weird too... for ages I was vehement about never, ever clicking on any of that crap on FB or Youtube (and I barely use Instagram at all and don't even have TikTok). But one day, somehow, I got suckered in by a thumbnail of a cute dog or something, a…

That's called doom scrolling.

I thought doom scrolling was specifically about negative content, but now it just means any kind of mindless endless scrolling?

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#172

Post by fleekonpoint »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #155

My strategy is to do a lot of "Not interested" curation about any negative content, like ragebait, thirstbait, politics, etc. This leaves mostly meditation and health advice, spiritual and religious uplifting content, cute animals videos, sweet things to share with friends, etc.

I used to do this with Reddit but lately more than half of my feed is their recommended posts which include a lot of negative or ragebait content. Maybe a plugin can help with this

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#173

Post by sriacha »

I wonder if we can have a continuum of "doom scrolling".

For instance digital crack (tiktok )X/facebookhackernewswikipedia"soft" novelspoetryjames joycelegal texts

At some point any information stream can become susceptible to self-reinforcing doom scrolling. Reading novels is probably better than tiktok but could easily become unhealthy. I mostly weaned myself off of traditional social media but find it very easy to have a quick glance at hacker news and notice hours have gone by.

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#174

Post by Almondsetat »

mindcrime wrote: post #160
PhunkyPhil wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That counts as doom scrolling to me. If while I'm watching short form content like Reels or YT shorts etc, I realize that if you asked me what I watched 2 scrolls ago and I couldn't tell you- I'm doom scrolling. This is the case almost every time I open instagram.

Fair enough. I guess I was still thinking of "doom scrolling" as being specifically about scrolling for negative news. But from reading some of the other comments it seems that a lot of people feel like the definition has shifted. I can buy that.

No, the definition was always about the state of the person doing the scrolling, not of the content. For some reason it them changed, and now it appears to be coming back to the original meaning

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#175

Post by afro88 »

mindcrime wrote: post #154

Ugh. I don't necessarily do "doom" scrolling, but lately I have gotten drawn into wasting time on these various stupid "shorts" or "reels" or whatever, mostly on FB. It's weird too... for ages I was vehement about never, ever clicking on any of that crap on FB or Youtube (and I barely use Instagram at all and don't even have TikTok). But one day, somehow, I got suckered in by a thumbnail of a cute dog or something, a…

> which I'm going to do as soon as I get my new personal website/blog set up

I understand why you want a replacement for updating friends and family, but that's a really effortful barrier you're placing in front of deleting Facebook. For this reason you will find it way harder. And it's already harder than you think.

Take any and all barriers away from ditching FB. They are your mind tricking you into staying.

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#176

Post by Almondsetat »

joshlemer wrote: post #171
recursive wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's called doom scrolling.

I thought doom scrolling was specifically about negative content, but now it just means any kind of mindless endless scrolling?

No, the original definition of the word always referred to the mental state of the user. Then the definition got hijacked somehow to mean "negative content"

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#177

Post by lloeki »

xnorswap wrote: post #116
the_snooze wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if you can't act on them, don't you have to pick up your phone anyway? Not necessarily. My smartwatch is basically a beeper. I see messages come in, then I mentally prioritize them. 90% of the time, it can wait at least an hour, maybe longer. It's conditioned me (and people around me) that instant reachability is neither necessary nor desirable. It makes it easier to focus on what's in front of me instead of constan…

I don't know how true this really is, but I read somewhere there is a generational divide now, where older people are happy to see an SMS and leave it to respond later, perhaps days later, while the younger generation would consider "being left on read" as an offence and therefore would feel compelled to immediately act on it to not offend.

Things you read as notifications don't show up as read, even if you dismiss the notification.

As for the watch, I look at the thing and immediately can classify as truly urgent, needs immediate action or non-urgent and leave it piling as a todo list.

As a consequence I've begun to regularly forget where I put my phone, which is honestly quite liberating.

I've also started to aggressively cull away badges and notifications privileges from many apps.

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#178

Post by valbaca »

mindcrime wrote: post #154

Ugh. I don't necessarily do "doom" scrolling, but lately I have gotten drawn into wasting time on these various stupid "shorts" or "reels" or whatever, mostly on FB. It's weird too... for ages I was vehement about never, ever clicking on any of that crap on FB or Youtube (and I barely use Instagram at all and don't even have TikTok). But one day, somehow, I got suckered in by a thumbnail of a cute dog or something, a…

> lately I have gotten drawn into wasting time on these various stupid "shorts" or "reels" or whatever, mostly on FB.

Yeah, that's doom scrolling

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#179

Post by littlecranky67 »

brushfoot wrote: post #123

Apps to fight apps has never worked for me. When I'm bored/tired enough, it becomes a game to disable my own restrictions. What works for me is removing the antecedent completely by charging my phone in another room at night. Now the battle is easier: Decide once a day to put it there, and track how many days you succeed. For me that's a lot easier than having it in my pocket, where the Internet is always a couple la…

You can use lockmeout.online to ultimately lock yourself out of your phone for a given timespan (i.e. 4 hours). No cheating, no way to "disable" your own restriction once you set it active. Works by changing your unlock PIN to a random 16 digit combination and will withhold it for you during your preset time lock.

Re: My Struggle with Doom Scrolling

#180

Post by valbaca »

jy14898 wrote: post #30

Does everyone really mean doom scrolling when they talk about these issues? For me personally, it's definitely about dopamine and not about negative emotions, yet everyone uses the phrase doom scrolling - am I the odd one out? For example, if I'm feeling stressed/anxious, I'll scroll/browse/distract myself to avoid the negative feelings. I'm not seeking them like doom scrolling says.

> For example, if I'm feeling stressed/anxious, I'll scroll/browse/distract myself to avoid the negative feelings.

Yes, that's doom scrolling

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