The Dangers of “Doomscrolling”

Since most of us are still “Work from Home” or working remotely, inevitably the intensity of our screen time becomes higher. However, do you realize how often you are more interested in negative news?

If you are aware that negative news often grabs your attention and makes you tend to keep looking and looking for more, then you need to be aware of, “Doomscrolling”. Let’s take a look at the definition of Doomscrolling.

Quoted from merriam-webster.com, “Doomscrolling” and “Doomsurfing” refer to the tendency to continue to surf or scroll through bad news, even though that news is saddening, disheartening, or depressing. Without us realizing it, this tendency has become a habit that we do, especially these days.

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the circumstances that triggered the emergence of Doomscrolling. This can be said to be reasonable because, in the current situation, we tend to be more active in seeking various information that is expected to help us to prevent and treat COVID-19.

There are many news and social media content that use provocative headlines to attract our attention. Or in a form of video, it is usually known as a ‘hook’ where the first three seconds of the video is created to get our attention and drives us to keep watching until the end. That is why it is important to balance our curiosity and critical thinking.

The dangers of Doomscrolling cannot be avoided or overcome from the content’s side. Therefore, we as the audience must realize the importance of knowing what we need and have clear and positive goals in seeking information. That way, we can easily distance ourselves from negative content that can drag us into the dangers of Doomscrolling.

Visit our podcast section to hear a deeper and more detailed explanation on the topic “Bahaya Doomscrolling” by Daniel V. Lie, President/Global Chief Executive of digima ASIA collaborating with SmartFM Radio on the Smart DigiTalk program.

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Daniel V. Lie
President/Global Chief Executive

Daniel is a very prominent figure in Indonesia's digital learning sector.

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