Digital Wellness: 8 Ways to Take Care of Yourself in Chaotic News Cycles and Stop Doomscrolling

If you’ve been paying attention for the last few years, it feels like the news cycle seems to be speeding up, with every day moving faster than the day before. Maybe there really is just a lot more happening, or maybe the attention merchants are just working harder to capture our eyeballs and mental energy. Whatever it is, it’s exhausting.

For the average concerned citizen, trying to keep up with everything can feel overwhelming. What’s worse, the constant barrage of news, with each event framed as a crisis or a catastrophe, can keep us in a state of stress and anxiety, which isn’t good for mental health or productivity. It can also desensitize you, so that repeated exposure to so-called crises that turned out to be no big deal can mean you’re less likely to recognize a real crisis when it comes along.

The worst, though, is when a major story is happening and you just can’t pull yourself away. Trust us: we’ve been there and it’s even got a term: doomscrolling. You know it’s not healthy to sit and refresh various news sites and Twitter feeds all day long, consuming each new hot take and getting more worked up as the day goes on, but you can’t seem to stop. That’s terribly unhealthy for a whole host of reasons.

We don’t recommend disengaging from news and politics completely, but you can’t let it take over your life, either. Here are eight tips for digital wellness when the news cycle gets to be overwhelming.

1. Curate your sources.

   Sometimes, it can feel like there is so much good reporting coming from so many different places, but keeping up with them all would be a full-time job. You can’t read everything, so pick a few solid sources that you can trust, and let those be your main sources of news. Then you can cherry pick particularly good or important stories from other sources to supplement.

2. Set time limits for your news consumption.

   You can do this in two ways. One option is to set a time limit on how much news you can consume throughout the day (say, 60 minutes). You can use an app on your phone to lock yourself out of news sites once you’ve reached your time limit. The other option is to have a set window of time during the day when you’re allowed to check the news, (say, 6:30-7:00 am and 5:30-6:00 pm). This will help with the dreaded doomscrolling.

3. Use filters.

   News stories will try to get around your limits by sneaking in through other ways. Employ a good ad-blocker on your web browser and filter out certain words from your Twitter and Facebook feeds (we know someone who has filtered the names of every presidential candidate). You don’t need to be bombarded by news stories all day long if you’ve got another source for staying informed.

4. Engage with good news, too.

   There are always good things happening in the world, but those stories don’t drive clicks quite like the rage-inducing ones do, so you’re less likely to see them from most news outlets. When the world feels like everything is bad, engaging with good stuff can help. We like Erin Ruberry’s In Good News, which is a daily newsletter filled with positive stories, cute animal gifs, and other cheerfulness. Instead of doomscrolling try joyscrolling.

5. Study history.

   It’s easier for everything to feel like a crisis if you have no sense of perspective. While the old adage that “history repeats itself” isn’t exactly true, it does help to see what happened in other times, to see what other people have done in response to troubling circumstances, and to compare various power brokers and political leaders.

6. Turn off push notifications.

   You should probably turn off all push notifications in general, but we especially recommend turning them off for news sources. Unless you are a high-ranking government official who needs to stay on top of breaking news (in which case, you’ve got staffers to help with that and don’t need to rely on a New York Times pop-up alert on your phone), you probably don’t need to know about every event the very second it happens. The notifications are just there to distract you. Don’t let them.

7. Take a break.

   If you really can’t handle the constant barrage and doomscrolling, it’s okay to disengage for a while. Don’t disengage forever, but try taking a weekend off. Disconnect from the internet, leave your tv off, and avoid public spaces like waiting rooms and bars where there are always televisions playing. Give yourself time to decompress and reset. You’ll feel better after you’ve had some rest.

8. Learn more about doomscrolling from the experts.

   One of our favorite podcasts to listen to here at Myrth is Hidden Brain. Recently they put out an episode all about doomscrolling featuring Steven Pinker.

This all ties in neatly with our general emphasis on digital minimalism and mindfully engaging with technology, too. When you have control over how much news you consume, the format in which you consume it, and the amount of energy it can demand from you, you can channel your remaining energy into things that are just as important--things like advocating for change, caring for your community, and supporting your loved ones.

Have you set boundaries for how you consume news media? Are you doomscrolling? What limits do you place? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.

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