DAY 143: Doomscrolling Again? Snap Out of It.

DAY 143

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Twenty-one Tuesday 4 August 2020

Doomscrolling Again? Snap Out of It.

“As the pandemic forces us to stay home,

there are ways to break the habit of bingeing on bad news.”

“Everything is awful. The world as we remember it has ended…This experience of sinking into emotional quicksand while bingeing on doom-and-gloom news is so common there’s now internet lingo for it: ‘doomscrolling. Exacerbating this behavior, shelter-in-place orders leave us with little to do other than to look at our screens: by some measures, our screen time has jumped at least 50 percent.” - From a recent newspaper article by the same title

From childhood I have been a citizen of the world: a stamp collection I began in grade school introduced me to every country, a collection extensive enough that I could sell it to finance my first semester in a Christian college. From childhood I have devoured National Geographic magazines. As an adult I subscribe to national news magazines, daily newspapers, and watch multiple news outlets every evening. This would be fine in normal times but these are not normal times: no matter where I turn, one thing is always staring back at me: the global pandemic. I am in danger of doing what the article cautions against: bingeing on bad news, or ‘doomscrolling.’  

What about you? Such activity is not intentional – we don’t seek out bad news, it seeks us out and won’t go away. And yes, it can be depressing. So what practical steps can we take to bring balance to our news intake? Here are three things the article suggests with my take on them.

FIRST – Control your time. Decide on the amount of time you are comfortable giving to news, prioritize the news sources and then choose which ones fit into your time boundaries.

SECOND – Practice meditation. And lest this word sound uncomfortably like ‘eastern religion,’ God talks about the one “…whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.” Psalm 1:2. Framing each day – “day and night” – with God’s Word can help balance all the waking time in between and protect us from ‘doomscrolling’ overload.

THIRD – Connect with others. The most fundamental statement God has made regarding human beings created in His image is that “It is not good for man to be alone.” Genesis 2:18. In this day of social isolation multiple internet platforms can connect us to others.

Reflective question: Which of the three steps above do you most need to focus on to avoid ‘doomscrolling?’

Reflective Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:1 – “For everything there is…a time…”  

Reflective hymn:

‘Open My Eyes” – Clara Scott (1841-1897)

Open my eyes, that I may see, glimpses of truth Thou hast for me;

Place in my hand the wonderful key, that shall unclasp and set me free.