WACO, Texas (KXXV) — What is doomscrolling? We all do it, mindlessly scrolling through our phones for several minutes to up to several hours. We dive deep into the dangers and health risks of this trend.
- Doomscrolling is defined as spending excessive time scrolling online through news or other content that can make you feel sad, anxious, angry, etc.
- 74% of those with an overload of news consumption reported mental health problems, with 61% having physical issues.
- Dr. Chalmers with Chalmers Wellness says the best and easiest thing for you to do is to put your phone down.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
It's nothing new.
“If I have nothing else I'm doing, it's pretty common occurrence for me just to get on TikTok and like for 30 minutes, that's all I do, you know?” Madelyn Haydon, a student at Baylor University, said.
“I actually gave up social media for Lent, so I kind of try to cut it out of my life more, and like we're from California, so a lot of social media presence, a lot of just media in general, so I try to limit myself. I find myself doing it a lot more than I should,” Kelly Woolfenden, fellow student at Baylor University, said.
Doomscrolling. Merriam-Webster describes it as spending excessive time scrolling online through news or other content that can make you feel sad, anxious, angry, etc.
“Sometimes also depends on the day. I, I feel like I'm pretty busy, so I don't have a ton of time, but like sometimes at night when I'm like in my room I'll definitely like scroll, but I try not to like be excessive about it,” Natalie McGuckin said, fellow student at Baylor University.
But just how excessive have we become?
“There are actually a couple of different issues with this. So, one, you have just the psychological function of scrolling through and looking at everybody else's wins compared to where you perceive your life. And so you have this dichotomy where everybody else's life is awesome,” said Dr. Matt Chalmers, owner of Chalmers Wellness.
Dr. Matt Chalmers with Chalmers Wellness up in Frisco explains that not only do your emotional issues suffer, but also your brain health.
“When we start talking about it at night, this is a big, big thing. Your phone emits a lot of different frequencies of light. Those act on the brain in a different way. And so a lot of them keep you awake or keep your brain active in ways that shouldn't; they're not conducive to sleep. And so what ends up happening is that now your sleep suffers, either you can't get to sleep, or you start waking up more often,” Dr. Chalmers said.
According to crisistextline.org, 74% of those with an overload of news consumption reported mental health problems, with 61% having physical issues, like not sleeping well.
The number one thing Dr. Chalmers says to do to combat this shouldn’t shock you.
“The biggest thing I tell people is just get off your phone. If you set your wake time and set your bedtime, and spend some time just relaxing for 20 or 30 minutes beforehand, off your phone,” Dr. Chalmers said.
