Imagine this. It’s April 2020, and you’re scrolling through your social media newsfeed between Zoom meetings. Headlines like “Death toll continues to rise,” “COVID-19 could cause long-term health problems,” and “Healthcare systems are overwhelmed” flash across the screen. You feel down, but you can’t stop scrolling.
If this is true for you, you are not alone. Results People tend to seek out information in uncertain times. It’s a natural coping mechanism. But is constantly searching for information on social media, sometimes called doomscrolling, helpful during a pandemic or at any time?
A study on how bad news affects mood More generally Exposure to negative COVID news may be detrimental to our emotional well-being. Indeed, early evidence on the impact of COVID news consumption on mental distress reflects this. For example, A study A March 2020 survey of more than 6,000 Americans found that the more time participants spent consuming COVID news per day, the more unhappy they felt.
These findings are surprising, but they leave some key questions unanswered. Does doomscrolling make people unhappy, or are unhappy people more likely to doomscroll? Does it matter how much time we spend doomscrolling? And what happens if we doomscroll “kindly”—that is, read about positive responses to humanity’s global crisis?
To find out, we did the following: research Here, we showed hundreds of people real content from Twitter or YouTube for 2-4 minutes. The Twitter feed and YouTube videos covered either general news about COVID or news about kindness during COVID. We then used a questionnaire to measure the mood of these participants and compared it to the mood of participants who did not engage with any content.
People who saw general COVID-related news reported feeling worse than those who saw nothing. In contrast, people who saw COVID news stories that included acts of kindness did not feel as bad, but they did not feel as good as we would have expected.
These findings show that consuming just two to four minutes of negative news about COVID-19 can have a negative impact on mood.
We did not see any mood boosting among participants who viewed positive news stories involving acts of kindness, but this may be because the stories were still relevant to COVID. Other studiesPositive news articles have been shown to be associated with improved mood.
Making social media a more positive space
Our research was published earlier this month. Ironically, News report Among our research findings: Headlines like this: “Just 5 minutes on social media can make you unhappy,” a study found. This could be one of the things people doomscroll about.
But we didn’t find that all social media use made people miserable. Rather, we found that consuming negative content about COVID on Twitter or YouTube during the pandemic made people miserable.
So what can we do to take care of ourselves and make our time on social media more enjoyable?
We found that reading just a few minutes of negative news about COVID-19 can have a negative impact on mood. Nuchili/Shutterstock
One option is to delete your social media accounts entirely. According to figures, nearly half of Facebook users uk and USA We considered leaving the platform in 2020.
But how realistic is it to distance ourselves from the platforms that connect us? Almost half How much of the world’s population could these platforms capture, especially if they provide social interaction at a time when face-to-face interaction is risky or impossible?
If avoidance isn’t realistically possible, here are some other ways to have a more positive experience on social media:
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Be careful about what you consume on social media. If you log in to connect with others, focus on shared personal news and photos instead of the latest headlines.
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To keep your news feed balanced, look for content that makes you happy. It could be cute kittens, beautiful landscapes, mouth-watering food videos, or something else entirely. You can also follow social media accounts that are dedicated to sharing only happy and positive news.
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Use social media to promote positivity and kindness. Sharing the good things that happen in your life can help. make one feel goodAnd your positive mood can spread to others. You may also like: Praise someone else On social media. It may sound awkward, but people will appreciate it more than you think.
The important thing to note is that I am not suggesting that we avoid all news and negative content. We need to be aware of what is happening in the world. But we also need to pay attention to our mental health.
As the pandemic continues to change our lives and our newsfeeds, our research highlights the importance of recognizing the emotional toll negative news takes on us. But there are steps you can take to mitigate that toll and make social media a happier place.
By Catherine BuchananLecturer, Department of Psychology, University of Essex; Jillian SandstromSenior Lecturer in Psychology, University of Essex; Lara ArkninDistinguished Associate Professor of Psychology, Simon Fraser Universityand Shaba RotunPhD candidate, Department of Psychology, University of Essex. This article was republished from conversation Under Creative Commons License. Read more Original article.
