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There's something darkly comedic about lying in bed at 2 AM, thumb cramping from the repetitive, downward swipe, watching humanity's greatest hits of catastrophe scroll past like the world's worst slot machine, itself a pretty low bar. The term was invented by Ashik Siddique, a co-chair of Democratic Socialists of America, and it sounds like a heavy metal band, but feels more like a curse.

That’s not some twist of phrasing, research done by the Harvard Medical school has shown this behavior is linked to worse mental well-being and life satisfaction, with the study finding it evokes greater levels of existential anxiety. Essentially, we're voluntarily marinating our brains in a soup of disasters, then wondering why we feel terrible.

The mechanism is insidiously simple. After several minutes of scrolling through negative content, you feel more anxious, angry, or helpless, and this negativity functions like a lens, causing you to pay more attention to stories that justify and accentuate these feelings. It's a feedback loop worthy of Sisyphus, except he at least got some exercise pushing that boulder.

We're just sitting there, bathing in blue light, convincing ourselves that reading seventeen slightly different takes on the same disaster constitutes being "informed." Consuming negative news has been linked to increases in depression and anxiety, as well as feelings of fear, stress, and sadness. Shocking, truly, who could have predicted that mainlining humanity's worst moments might not be great for one's peace of mind?

The irony is that our brains are somewhat complicit in this self-sabotage. We evolved to pay attention to threats because the caveperson who ignored rustling bushes became lunch. Unfortunately, our ancient threat-detection system hasn't been updated for the internet age, where every conceivable danger from across the globe can be delivered directly to your pocket with high-definition images and autoplay video.

Doomscrolling can send your mind racing, lead to burnout, and steal your sleep, appetite, motivation, and desire. It's like voluntarily signing up for all the psychological symptoms of actual danger without any of the benefits of, you know, being able to run away from it. Young adults and young men in particular are more at risk.

Here's the revolutionary concept, sometimes looking at something positive is actually good for you. Research has found links between an upbeat mental state and improved health, including lower blood pressure, reduced risk for heart disease, healthier weight, better blood sugar levels, and longer life. Looking at this sort of content is linked to our bodies lowering the levels of our stress hormones. Joy is not just a pleasant luxury but an actual health intervention, which makes doomscrolling roughly equivalent to chain-smoking despair cigarettes.