What do you do first thing in the morning and/or last thing in the day? Are you a ‘doomscroller’?
I heard the term ‘doomscrolling’ a few weeks ago, and it resonated with me for all the wrong reasons. Doomscrolling is used to describe the near-endless phone scroll of reading news feeds and diving into content that relates to all the day’s topical news.
The daily news is almost invariably negative and depressing, and yet you almost can’t resist the urge to scroll through and read about it all. You scroll and scroll, searching for something new.
There are literally thousands of stories related to Covid-19, racial protests, negative comments made by the “leadership” of the country, and even the ridiculous things that come out of the mouths of celebrities and sports people alike (these people should be encouraged to be quiet).
I find myself sucked into the abyss of these stories each morning, then wind up gasping for air as I come out of my self-induced phone coma. That’s when I experience a momentary epiphany that the world is larger than my nearly six-inch screen.
Actually, you can review all of the day’s news and move on with your life in about 10 minutes. The news is easily bucketed into a few categories, and as I mentioned before, very few of them are good or positive.
That being said, I still get sucked into scrolling in a futile attempt to try and find some nugget or morsel of goodness. I am disappointed every time. I search Facebook to see if my friends are doing better than me, but they’re all doing the same thing (most of which currently involves a lake, an RV or a hike). They are posting their best versions of themselves while I mire in a day that looks and smells very much like the previous one.
Doomscrolling is not healthy, so my recommendation is that we all collectively get off our phones. I’ve lately resorted to watching the local TV news at 6 p.m. rather than visiting the web for my topical updates.
The local news is that bastion of a foregone, simpler time, with a format that almost always ends with something intended to be uplifting.
For me it’s good because I get one story per topic, and then they move on. No endless diving into the depths or what this number means or sourcing a different point of view. You get a point made, the content is delivered, and then you move on.
My prediction is, your day will start and end better if you decide to put down the phone and stop the doomscrolling. Your brain will feel better. Your outlook will be brighter. You might just be able to focus on your day a little more clearly.
Cheers to a more positive day tomorrow!
This story was first published by MediaPost.com and is republished here with the permission of the author.
Cory Treffiletti is chief marketing officer at Voicera. He has been a thought leader, executive and business driver in the digital media landscape since 1994. In addition to authoring a weekly column on digital media, advertising and marketing since 2000 for MediaPost‘s Online Spin, Treffiletti has been a successful executive, media expert and/or founding team member for a number of companies and published a book, Internet Ad Pioneers, in 2012.
