When the world is in crisis, sometimes there's no better confidant than the internet. It's there to field questions you can't mutter aloud yet, like "How to survive a nuclear bomb?" or "When will humans go extinct?" It catches distressed queries such as "doomsday clock 2022," "WW3," "probability of nuclear war," and "potassium iodide." The quality of what it gives back to you is altogether another matter, but as the internet logs our every impulse, most obviously through search engines, it becomes a repository for our existential fears.
There is no shortage of those anxieties today. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February sent search terms related to nuclear war and World War III skyrocketing. And these sentiments found their way to social media, too, with the average user and geopolitical expert alike speculating about whether global armed conflict is imminent. These are scary times, but they have been for awhile. There's a reason why doomscrolling became a catchphrase for the extremely online a few years ago. We've been in a state of unyielding catastrophe since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and cascading crises like climate change disasters only make the uncertainty worse.
Trying to make sense of what these events mean for our collective future typically drives us to seek more information. It's in our nature to scan our environment for useful data, and for threats. The discovery of provocative ideas can even give us a unique sense of pleasure. But on the internet, particularly on social media, the data often overwhelms and those perils can feel ever-present. A sense of doom can quickly become pervasive.
To help you navigate the darkest timelines and cope with the dizzying emotions they elicit, Mashable asked experts how to cope with the doom that people encounter online. Their insights cover what to know about doomscrolling, how to assess different types of perceived threats and crises, and yes, how to live with the possibility of apocalypse and still find joy.
The rise of doomscrolling
Recently, several Russian military planes began making unexpected excursions toward the Ural Mountains, an area suspected of harboring bunkers designed to outlast nuclear war. Of course, open-source intelligence Twitter was on the case, and what began as "chatter" soon turned into a chorus of people speculating what the Russians were doing. The conversation that unfurled beneath these tweets vacillated from sober observation to justified worry to veiled predictions of armageddon. Cue the doomscrolling.
By evening's end, one of the experts tracking the flights surmised that the "very visible drill" was designed to send a message to the United States: The Kremlin is prepared for nuclear escalation. Tom Nichols, an expert who specializes in U.S.-Russia relations and nuclear strategy, tried to soothe people's frayed nerves. To one follower who asked him, "Should I be worried yet?" he replied, "We’re a long way from anything that requires panic. I’ll be the first to let you know. ✌️"
This is the kind of reassurance users hope for when they doomscroll. If they can just find that one authoritative voice who can quiet the countless others dumping doubt and dread into their timeline, maybe life won't seem so bleak. Or they hunt for more information about an event or development, because thinking they know everything feels better than wondering if they don't know enough. But unexpected consequences can include stumbling across disinformation that heightens paranoia or blurs the lines between fact and propaganda.
Doomscrolling can be particularly tricky behavior to assess, says Dr. Benjamin Johnson, Ph.D., an editor of the journal of Media Psychology and assistant professor of advertising at the University of Florida. The concept emerged within the past few years as a pattern of media use documented by the extremely online. Some might argue it's just a different version of behaviors we know better, like fear of missing out or internet addiction. But when Johnson studied doomscrolling, the evidence suggested that it is a unique behavior. The results of the study, which Johnson co-authored, were published this month in Technology, Mind, and Behavior, a peer-reviewed journal from the American Psychological Association.
Johnson and his co-authors found that doomscrolling is closely associated with internet addiction and online vigilance, which describes a mindset of constant connectedness. Yet doomscrolling had enough distinctive features to stand on its own. The researchers also found that certain people were more likely to doomscroll: men, younger adults, and the politically engaged. Specific traits predicted the behavior as well, including anxiety, poor self-control, passive and habitual social media use, and neuroticism, or vulnerability to intense emotional swings.
What does this mean for you? While further research on doomscrolling is necessary, Johnson says that if someone identifies these traits in themselves, it may help explain why doomscrolling draws them in with relative ease. Johnson also says we form a habit like doomscrolling because it can be useful at times. When TikTok videos about creeping gas prices prompt you to fill up sooner than later, it's a reward for "surveilling your environment," says Johnson.
"Just because you get into a harmful cycle or an undesirable cycle doesn't mean that you can't reset or rewire that habit."
Eventually, however, you may see diminishing returns. Once gas prices become news headlines, scrolling through video after video of users staring at the pump in shock may leave you feeling depressed or angry. For the Twitter users who urgently followed the flight patterns of Russian military planes, numerous hours elapsed before the experts confidently declared the exercise a drill, not swift movements that would precede nuclear escalation. In the interim, how much time did some people spend scrolling for more insight, contemplating what nuclear war might look like, and Googling "potassium iodide"?
Importantly, Johnson and his co-authors found that doomscrolling can lead to worse emotional experiences, such as heightened negative feelings, but that those appeared to be temporary and didn't affect people's perception of their psychological well-being. Doomscrolling was also less prevalent than Johnson and his co-authors expected, and interview subjects in the study who did report the behavior also said they were able to change their habits.
"Just because you get into a harmful cycle or an undesirable cycle doesn't mean that you can't reset or rewire that habit," says Johnson. "If you find using media in ways you don't like, you can sort of rearrange your environment."
You've probably heard the strategies that Johsnon recommends, but they bear repeating: Be aware of how much time you devote to social media, reflect on whether it feels productive, and exercise self-control.
If you're concerned about missing news about atrocities committed by Russia in Ukraine, you needn't scroll through social media looking for the latest graphic images or footage. In fact, research shows that exposure to such collective trauma can lead to acute stress and post-traumatic stress symptoms. Try reading reputable news articles once a day instead.
When you see predictions of impending doom, ask yourself if it's necessary to read the pile-on of low-quality replies from people you don't know or trust. Can you wait a few hours to see if the Department of State comments on Russian plane activity before rushing to find commentary from strangers with questionable credentials? Such an approach is arguably far more boring than getting lost in a rabbit hole of feverish takes, but try recalling how many times the voices in the crowd were right about what they predicted. Odds are they weren't accurate very often, or at all. Don't bet your precious time and energy on them.
How to stop the panic
It is true that crises are everywhere. Among them right now are inflation, climate change, attacks on democracy, war, and COVID-19. The added challenge we face is living in a networked environment where the sentiment of doom can be amplified ad nauseam. It's easy to feel defeated by digital tidal waves of bad news, and much harder to grasp progress toward goals like defeating Russia or increasing global vaccination.
Dr. Vaile Wright, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and spokesperson for the American Psychological Association, conceives of doom as being overwhelmed by factors outside of our control, which then leads to distortions in how we see the world, like catastrophizing. We become convinced that nothing is going well. We may believe humanity has little chance to rescue itself from self-inflicted ruin. Wright says it becomes hard to see the good when we feel so mired in the negative.
Becoming unstuck requires what Wright describes as "Socratic questioning." If you're concerned that the deployment of weapons of mass destruction is imminent, ask yourself: What would have to happen for nuclear war to occur?
"When you start sort of digging into the cognitive distortions, they start to fall apart, at least for the most part," says Wright. "Then you have to get to a place where you accept that there are some things we cannot predict. You have some faith, hopefully, in humanity as a whole. And then you refocus on the things that are in your control."
Historical perspective also helps reframe distortions. Wright says we can look to past moments in history in which people worried the world was going to end but it didn't. While what's happening now is relatively unprecedented for many people alive today, it doesn't mean the apocalypse is inevitable.
"We all need to be informed, but does that mean we need to continually expose ourselves to doomsday rhetoric?"
Wright says that people who are "less tolerant of uncertainty" tend to engage in what's known as reassurance seeking. It makes sense, then, to turn to search engines, social media, and constant news updates for information that might ease anxious feelings by providing more certainty. But when someone encounters unpredictable levels of both doomsday rhetoric and reassurance on social media, it's suddenly much harder to decide what to filter out, and when to draw the line.
That's why Wright recommends paying close attention to physical and emotional signals that indicate how your information gathering isn't helping. This could include feeling helpless or anxious, or regularly relying on drinking or eating to cope with negative emotions.
"We need to be asking ourselves: 'What is causing and driving my distress?'" says Wright. "Is it that I am not giving myself breaks from information gathering at this moment? We all need to be informed, but does that mean we need to continually expose ourselves to doomsday rhetoric?"
Keep eating ice cream
Dr. Herbert Lin, who holds a doctor of science, knows well what it's like to worry about doomsday scenarios. He's a member of the Science and Security board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the nonprofit organization that's been warning the world about man-made threats to humanity's existence since soon after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945. The organization's famous Doomsday Clock sits at 100 seconds to midnight, a metaphor designed to illustrate how close we are to destroying the world.
"I live in a world of existential dread," says Lin, who is a senior research scholar for cyber policy and security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and the Hank J. Holland Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Both Lin and the Bulletin cite nuclear escalation and climate change as two of the most dire threats we face. Lin's also deeply worried about how cyber-enabled information warfare, which includes disinformation, distorts reality and breed distrust, while political tribalism and partisanship encourage people to uncritically stick with their beliefs. As a result, it becomes harder to collectively identify and solve complex problems.
"That's an existential threat to our civilization," says Lin.
He deals with the enormity of these threats by acknowledging the existential dread but also by finding ways to experience personal joy, a process that sometimes plays out multiple times a day. That fluidity — getting comfortable with recognizing crisis but finding a way back to happiness — is how Lin copes.
When asked how to survive the daily onslaught of bad news, he offers a playful answer: "There's still ice cream."
The advice came to him on a hot summer day last year when, worried about the state of the world, he passed his favorite ice cream shop in San Francisco and noticed a mother and her children joyfully eating ice cream while sitting on a street curb. It was a poignant reminder that our bonds sustain us in small and large ways. They give us hope at times of despair and calm the urge to surrender to feeling doomed.
"It's hard to be optimistic right now, but it's better to not be alone," says Lin.
That knowledge may drive some people to social media, where they can find a sense of connection and belonging, but its limits are worth contemplating. No one ever knows when an exchange will turn nasty, or when a day spent hunting with strangers for clues about what the Russian military is doing will produce a surge of adrenaline and cortisol for no meaningful purpose.
We may feel tenderness toward people we encounter online, but mostly they're no substitute for the relationships we've spent years or decades nurturing in person. Lin said when he's worried about the threat of nuclear war, he reflects on his connection to those he loves. Things could certainly be worse if he felt scared — and also alone. Lin then lets those he cherishes know just how much he cares for them.
Each person's antidote to doom depends on who they are, but it's clear that searching for more information doesn't always help. Instead, it can harm. Perhaps Lin, a man of the sciences, is onto something. Maybe one of the best bulwarks against doom is something the internet, especially social media, doesn't have in large supply: love.
Topics Mental Health Social Good
