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PARAM MITTAL
PARAM MITTAL

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What is Doom Scrolling ?

Problem πŸ‘€

Doomscrolling or doomsurfing is the act of spending an excessive amount of time reading large quantities of negative news online


Solution πŸ’‘

Instead of just scrolling and wasting 4-5 hours daily, Can we convert this habit to watch tutorials 2-3 hours ?

Like I said the main problem of scrolling on social media is that it never ends.... while tutorials do end...


What changes we can bring to solve this problem comment below !!

Cheers 🍺

Top comments (2)

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pidgey0403 profile image
Gabrielle Niamat • Edited

I think doom-scrolling is a product of the way some apps function, like Jean-Michel explained. Apps like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook etc. are designed to provide endless feeds to scroll through, which makes it easy to continually take in negative information.

Your suggested solution of watching 2-3 hours of tutorials a day instead of 4-5 hours a day of doom-scrolling might not be the most helpful for all. A single tutorial does end, but again the issue is with the platform itself. If you're on YouTube the algorithm is designed to suggest content that captures your attention, so you could very easily spend the entire day 'watching tutorials'.

In my opinion the only way to really combat this would be to restrict yourself from using these types of applications all together. Or you could set a strict timer to lock you out of an app after 30 minutes of usage.

It's important to practice self-regulation and moderation in everything, and I think social media is no exception. You need to be able to recognize the fact that you're willingly taking in negative news for extended periods of time, and then want to change your habits to improve your overall happiness.

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard • Edited

That's a great topic

First step is to recognize that Doomscrolling doesn't exist in a vacuum.

There are a whole set of apps like google maps, stopwatch, guitar tuner, ... where it's almost ijmpossible to become an addict.

Those apps are tools:

  • you use them exactly when you need them - when I need to tune my guitar
  • you use them for a specific purpose - I want my guitar to be tuned
  • you stop using them once it's done - my guitar is tuned, let's play music.

In a stark contrasts, apps like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tinder ... are designed by psychopaths to create this kind of addictive behavior.

They need to make their customers unhappy on average in order to either to "maximmise user engagement", meaning waste more time on a screen, sell more ads and longer subscriptions.

The fact that statiscally lots of their users are doomscrolling is a logical consequence of what the designers of the app want. They are designed like a digital casino with intermittent reward in mind.