There is a new term in the market for a problem that most connected people are familiar with. The term is “doomscrolling”. “Scrolling” means “scrolling”, in this case, scrolling the mobile screen down. “Doom” means “damnation”, “doom”, “doom”.
Conjugated, the two terms refer to the phenomenon of scrolling aimlessly on social networks, often for hours, without any purpose, simply to see if something appears capable of altering our emotional state of anxiety.
Who has never picked up their cell phone to see a single message and suddenly found themselves captured by the hypnosis of sliding their finger across the screen and when they realized they had wasted an hour or more of their life seeing randomness that only worsened their emotional state? This is “doomscrolling”.
An interesting publication by the Dutch media theorist Geert Lovink has just been published on the subject, entitled “Stuck on the Platform”. Lovink is a professor at the University of Amsterdam and founder of an institute that studies the culture that emerges from networks.
Right in the introduction to his work he says: “We are all trapped. No matter how hard you try to delete the apps from your phone, the power of seduction brings you back. Doomscrolling is the true new normal of a life that is now completely online. We are addicted to the big platforms, unable to return to the banality of the time when networks were decentralized”.
In 2009 I had the opportunity to have a debate with Lovink at PUC in São Paulo. It was the end of the heroic and decentralized phase of the internet in the 2000s: the era of blogs, free software, Wikipedia. It was also the time when the Marco Civil da Internet was being built collaboratively online.
In the debate, Lovink warned of a change that was underway, capable of undermining the model of decentralized organization. Competition for attention on the web would increasingly lead to concentration on platforms. As for me, despite also identifying the problem, I still bet that decentralized networks could prevail.
Thirteen years later, we are in a context in which the individual has in fact lost several capacities not only to act, but also to choose what type of information he accesses or not on the network. This decision is now made largely through algorithms. These, in turn, are optimized to capture attention, whatever the cost. One of the side effects of this way of organizing information is doomscrolling. Individuals caught in attention traps – without purpose – very difficult to avoid.
What to do? Geert proposes “to take seriously the mental misery that affects billions of people. We can no longer ignore depression, anger, despair and pretend that everything will get better overnight. Habits need to be unlearned, problem identification needs to spread. Changes in technology policies need to take place.” It’s a good conversation starter. In the meantime, let’s take a look at the social media feed. But let’s promise, it will only be for a minute.
It’s over – cookies as the main way to monitor users
Already – Apple and Google restricting cookies
It’s coming – New and more invasive ways to monitor users
I have over 8 years of experience in the news industry. I have worked for various news websites and have also written for a few news agencies. I mostly cover healthcare news, but I am also interested in other topics such as politics, business, and entertainment. In my free time, I enjoy writing fiction and spending time with my family and friends.
