Doomscrolling Toward Despair: Why Are Anxiety Junkies Addicted to Misery?

Some say they simply 'can't' not look at the news or stay away from social media, even though it's literally driving them crazy.

Royalty-free photo from Hippo PX

“I can’t not look at the news,” Scott replied when I pointed out it wasn’t an emotionally healthy habit.

“But it’s making you crazy,” I pointed out.

“I have to know what’s coming,” he insisted.

We think if we consume enough news we’ll be prepared for whatever disaster’s barrelling toward us. Except we’re not. Algorithms’ job is manufacturing and monetizing fear. The more frightened we are, the more we doomscroll—and the easier we are to control by those who want us to act, think, or vote a certain way. Scott has been ranting about billionaires for years and got angry when I asked where he got his sources about certain Jeffrey Epstein claims. He also leans toward conspiracy theories. He once got so triggered during a political discussion I considered ending the friendship.

Other friends suffer from, I suspect, ‘anxiety addiction’, as described in a Psychology Today article. “Our world is in the midst of an emotional meltdown,” it begins—in 2011. The psychiatrist author describes people who suffer ‘techno despair’, information overload from an Internet addiction of obsessively seeking bad news. He also describes a new kind of ‘attachment disorder’ some feel when they’re separated from their mobile and can’t access their emails or keep in constant touch with their favorite feeds.

Eleven years later, in 2021, the American Psychological Association warned that media overload increases mental illness and a learned helplessness over our lives.

There’s a partial evolutionary explanation for anxiety addiction: Our caveman brains are primed to worry and stress over the next big threat to our existence, back when opportunities for which existed hour to hour. Thinking ahead and preparing for many possible outcomes has ensured our continuation as a species.

Millions of years later, daily threats haven’t changed, except for a decrease in the number of opportunities to die. We still have to plan for various unpleasant scenarios. What if my husband leaves me? What if I lose my job? What if my wife does too? What if there’s a recession? What if I get Parkinson’s like Dad and Granddad? How will I buy a new car with the prices so jacked up? What if there’s stagflation? Civil war? Nuclear war?

Humans are primed for vigilance, and anxiety junkies may not know how to live without it. Or they may worry that good news or a more nuanced way of viewing politics, national and global problems will render them more vulnerable to ugly surprises. How can they ever let their guard down?

Reading and writing for sanity

Fifteen years ago, when social media was still in its pre-teens, I decided to write novels, which meant no more scrolling through Facebook or Twitter keeping up on the lives of friends and people who drunk-friended me after a party, or checking CNN for the latest political outrage.

I wasn’t doomscrolling; but I was on social media more than today, and felt triggered but not addicted. Writing novels diverted me down a healthier path while social media was just taking off.

I spent the next few years banging out several novels. Later, I moved to writing on Medium until I got kicked to Substack. I still sometimes lie on my couch, letting three hours guiltily slip away courtesy of Instagram, but at least I’m watching harmless drivel—people busting the dance moves, cute kitties, old classic movie snippets, funny sketches. Not nonsense about Trump and Epstein doing a threesome with an underage aardvark or how supporting Israel makes you the moral equivalent of Pol Pot.

In Canada, we worry about aU.S. threat to our sovereignty by a mentally unstable president. But I deal with it by listening to our leaders, who are taking it seriously, and I’m not as convinced as others that the U.S. military—the key to success or failure in this endeavor—will support Trump. I manage not to lie awake at night worrying about a different type of Occupy Toronto.

I read more books than most, with a view toward finding the positive. I seek hope in historical perspective. I remind people that Hitler’s thousand-year Reich fell short by 988 years. Finishing When Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty taught me that dictators never last, and that they enjoy shorter reigns when there’s enough popular support for regime change, especially from the merchant class.

So I worry a little less about a White Haus Putsch—Americans are a scrappier bunch than dutiful Germans. So are Canadians, as it turns out.

Reading books provides a twofold function in preserving my sanity: It doesn’t just give me a broader perspective, as finishing one book introduces new questions and I seek new books for further clarity, but it also deflects the doomscrolling seduction.

I suspect a particular, less-observed but pervasive root behind others’ anxiety addiction.

Why so much of it?

Often, what anxiety provides for our political preoccupations is a cover for unrelated anger and stresses.

A fellow ex-pat I used to be friendly with seemed to thrive on clickbait, driving an irrational hatred of his mother country, though he could never articulate why he hated it so much; his wife speculated he was actually angry at his mother, his parents’ divorce, and a somewhat dysfunctional childhood.

Another friend shared brainless memes about stupid culture war outrages like Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, terrified white supremacists were subjugating humanity via groceries. He suffered from multiple health issues, stuck at home on disability. Later, his wife joined him for the same reason.

There’s a common thread linking these and other anxiety addicts I know, backed up by research. Liberals suffer news-related anxiety more than conservatives. A 2021 study on emotional responses to news research during the COVID pandemic revealed the more liberals sought information, the more stress they felt. Conservatives felt less distressed, and didn’t worry as much about catching the virus. Young people and women also scored higher for COVID-related anxiety.

As Ph.D Steven Stosney notes in the APA article, the red flag for too much news exposure is, “if you get this body tension, or a rise in your pulse rate, just before you check the news. Then you have intrusive thoughts about the headlines—you think about them throughout the day.” News-driven anxiety exposure reduces emotional resilience and our ability to cope with problems overall.

Take back your power

I have a “Let’s see what happens,” view of the world, which annoys those when I refuse to melt down over Trump’s latest outrage. I recognize that he thrives on keeping people anxious and uncertain about the future. There’s plenty to worry about; he’s clearly a dangerous man with an increasingly unfettered ability to behave lawlessly and unconstitutionally, but I also see domestic problems he’s creating that may force his limited attention span if he wants to make it through his term.

I still think America could come out of the Trumpocalypse with some shreds of democracy left, and that history will show he had a greater positive impact on the country in unexpected ways even as he may well drive it toward ruin like he’s done so many of his businesses.

I don’t possess the learned helplessness about the prospect of an American invasion. When I do think about it, I mull ways I can fight back. I ponder what I’d do if Toronto suffered a drone attack. I think about how much resistance Trump would encounter at home. How much sabotage against American aggression would come from his own side of the border in a way that never happened before when wars were fought in distant lands.

I think about how I can help The Resistance.

Anger, as Dr. Stosny states, “is really a cry of powerlessness.”

What can anxiety junkies do to restore more peace and control over their lives?

As with any addiction, the first step comes from Alcoholics Anonymous: Admit you have a problem and resolve to fix it. Take back your power from the algorithms and your own insular mind. Understand that seeking the positive and less stress-inducing news experiences doesn’t make you a Pollyanna. The herd is stampeding. You don’t have to join them. Question your negative, fear-inducing beliefs.

Going cold turkey from the news isn’t the answer either, as anxiety increases from lack of knowledge. Although it works quite well for another friend of mine.

The more attention a potential disaster is given by the media, the more likely people are to worry more about it happening to them. Especially if they seek more information. Whatever I worry about—Trump’s latest tariffs or a forthcoming recession—I research different angles. Then I go look for something else. Like cat videos. Or Fluffy or Russell Peters.

Another thing: Don’t ruminate about the past or some prior Golden Age. It’s never coming back, but losing the better also means losing the worse. Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker’s books are great for seeing the longer view of history and human evolution.

Perhaps most of all, be part of the solution. Do something to fix whatever ails you. If you’re worried about climate change, recycle your plastic bags, educate others, buy a bike. Plan your Resistance to Trumpistan. Tell your Congresscritters you won’t vote for them until they stop pushing crazy woke or batshit-insane Project 2025 crap. Write. Speak out. (Anonymously if necessary.) Protect your assets.

Anxiety addiction is one’s own responsibility. You have the power to control how you feel and to not let others keep you in a constant state of adopted fear so they can control you.

My friend Scott was horrified when he eventually learned he almost lost a friendship because of his lack of anger management, and a girlfriend left him over it, too.

But today, he’s got both of us back and when I was with him recently he said something I rarely heard him say before about his political assessments for the future: “Of course, I may be wrong about this.”

Hope is now a radical act.

When I’m not digging an underground bunker in the yard behind my skyrise and dodging angry threats to evict me by the property manager, I help women and others reclaim their power here on Grow Some Labia.