COMMENT: Don’t let 'doom-scrolling' take hold and destroy our lives

THE KPE traffic didn’t help and the heat only made things worse. But the half-face selfie was the last straw.

Online searches throw up scant information about the half-face selfie, but my teenage daughter does little else. In the car. On the MRT. At the hawker centre. On the sofa. No location is beneath the half-face selfie, as her friends eagerly await the next snap of one eyeball, half a lip and a nostril.

And, I’m embarrassed to say, her Dad conformed to grumpy cliché when I saw her framing her latest masterpiece in the back of the car. We were supposed to be listening to The Rest is Politics podcast. She was supposed to be getting a primer on the Israel-Hamas war. She was supposed to be digesting a 2,000-year-old backstory in a 15-minute journey through the KPE.

But she was taking a half-face selfie instead.

Her priorities were questioned. Her phone was put down. The rest of the journey was spent listening to the Rest Is Politics podcast in silence. My daughter spent much of that Saturday afternoon not taking half-face selfies, but thinking about dead civilians instead. With tone-deaf fathers like me, who needs a bit of doom-scrolling, eh?

Because I knew what I was doing. I was surreptitiously dragging her into my grim world of relentless news cycles and notifications in the age of the polycrisis. Was I really helping or was I further taking away her generation’s rarest commodity?

Innocence.

Addicted to a daily buffet of despair

When I was her age, I was blessed with bundles of innocence. The digital tools of doom-scrolling were not yet available, denying us the chance to gorge on depressing news feeds. The only time a phone was used to gain the latest news was when I dialled West Ham United’s “club call” service, a money-sucking scam to rival the 1MDB scandal.

Whenever I rang West Ham’s “hotline” to get inside info, I’d get a recorded message that said something like, “Tony Cottee is still rumoured to be returning to the Hammers, but nothing is confirmed. If a deal is done, his salary will be paid by this phone call.”

I can’t recall how much this primitive form of news updates cost per minute, but it usually involved selling at least one major organ.

And that’s all we had. News was usually a day old and seemed to have been lifted from Star Wars’ opening crawl. In a place far, far away, something bad happened, which gave it less significance and immediacy than West Ham’s latest kit design (in fairness, they had some absolute shockers.)

Today, of course, the Daily Dystopia is just a click away. A free buffet of despair comes with every terrifying scroll. For starters, we’ve got the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. For the main course, there’s a child dying every 10 minutes in the Israel-Hamas war. For dessert, we can offer tense relations between the United States and China. And for drinks, there’s a free flow of salt water, garnished with sheets of melting ice.

And we’re behaving like those folks on cruise ships who fill their plates with more king prawns than they can finish. We’re addicted to consumption. The bigger the buffet, the more we want. Doom-scrolling is, in essence, a toxic mix of FOMO and the global polycrisis. We don’t want to miss out on anything! And look how much there is to potentially miss out on! The breakdown of supply chains, rising inflation, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Taiwan, Myanmar, there’s so much to choose from. Keep gorging. Keep scrolling. More, more, more.

The brain can’t get enough of the negativity. It’s actually an in-built defence mechanism, of sorts, according to Ken Yeager, a psychiatrist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. We learn about danger to survive. We made up ancient stories about scary animals to avoid being eaten. We learned about the 9/11 terror attacks to avoid being terrorised.

But when the dangers are perceived to be omnipresent, they can become overwhelming. A regular diet of terrible news warps our perspective. According to the Guardian, many Americans stopped flying and travelled by car after 9/11, which researchers believe caused 1,200 extra deaths in the United States.

Doomscrolling will not bring back control

Doom-scrolling panders to our innate desire for control in a world that seems to be losing it. To overcome that sense of helplessness, we cling to the idea that knowledge is still power. We can’t stop COVID-19, but we can read everything about it (even the wackiest of conspiracy theories). There’s literally nothing I can do about the horrors in Gaza, beyond forcing my teenage daughter to listen to a podcast about it.

Does doom-scrolling bring back control? Of course not. Devouring so much distressing content only amplifies the uncertainty and the sense of futility, especially for those struggling with anxiety-related disorders. Stress is often magnified by a perceived loss of control. How do you control a global polycrisis?

As a teenager, I couldn’t handle the seasonal crises at West Ham, but I’m expecting my daughter to get a handle on the Israel-Hamas war.

Not surprisingly, a study published in the Health Communication journal found 16.5 per cent of about 1,100 people surveyed displayed signs of “severely problematic” news consumption, leading to greater levels of stress, anxiety and poor health. Associate Professor Bryan McLaughlin, the study’s lead author, believed that the 24-hour news cycle could trigger a “constant state of high alert” in people, compromising their mental health.

My daughter was right to take a breather. Minimising the doom-scrolling doesn’t downplay the ongoing risks, but it may help to rationalise them. My daughter still learns about the existential threats facing us all. She has no choice. But for that reason alone, she should be able to step away and pull a few silly faces with friends.

She needs a chance to laugh, to exhale.

Honestly, I’m trying to do the same, to transcend the anxieties of the moment and look beyond the horrors of the news cycle, occasionally. The Rest is Politics remains my podcast staple, for instance, but The Rest is Football is now the palate cleanser, a chance to giggle at a few daft stories about Diego Maradona and reset.

The polycrisis isn’t leaving us. The clue is in the title. It’s everywhere and ongoing. Being informed remains vital. Being depressed isn’t. If doom-scrolling is causing more mental health problems than it solves, then turn away and look for a bit of positivity.

You’ll probably find it in the unlikeliest places, like in the back of a car, watching a teenager take silly half-face selfies with friends. And laughing.

Neil Humphreys is an award-winning football writer and a best-selling author, who has covered the English Premier League since 2000 and has written 28 books.

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