Doomscrolling Blues: Reclaiming positivity in social media

A common theme here at Llama Towers is to talk about our changing relationship with the Internet as a whole, and with social media specifically. I was both an early adopter of the Web and discussion forums, and even moderated a very busy site for a couple of years, which helped me to gain a life-long interest in internet regulation. I was similarly an early adopter of what would become social media, and I was very enthusiastic about the potential of the technology at the time.

I’ve written before of how that dream disappeared, how the ideals of the golden age of the Internet disappeared into clouds of conflict; how communities splintered, how social media became entangled in endless waves of disinformation and fake news; how the open and free web was displaced by walled gardens and apps; how everything became steadily worse.

It would be easy to continue going down the path of negativity, anger generates more clicks after all. Doomscrolling sells. Everything is getting worse. Enshittification and all that.

But I’m tired of all that. I’m tired of all the doomscrolling, of all the negativity, of all the ragebait, of all the anger. Sure, it feels like everything is going to hell, because let’s face it, it sometimes is when we look at daily life. But maybe social media shouldn’t have to be like that. Maybe there’s another way.

The first thing is that social media has a positivity paradox, platforms claim to connect us, yet rage drives engagement which encourages the platforms to feed us more ragebait, angry people click more. And this anger turns people into distrustful anger-fuelled machines. But it is easy to blame the algorithm when users have also become enthusiastic consumers of the anger, it seems like there’s a seething mass of negativity every time you open any type of social media, from Reddit to YouTube comments, we’re not only angry, we’re addicted to it. There is a vicious circle at play in which we are disgusted by the negativity, but keep coming back to it because doomscrolling has become a habit.

Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.

Is there a way out? I don’t know, but I’d like to think that there is. So let me tell you about what I have done to improve my own experience, and how it has changed my mental health positively, at least the part that I feel was becoming affected by social media.

Just like many people on social media in the last 10 years, I too was addicted to the negativity. While my output remains mostly positive, I found myself seeking out things to get angry about, and doomscrolling became an integral part of my online experience. Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter only made things worse, the site became a black hole of anger and seething resentment, probably on purpose. Other social media didn’t feel better, particularly alternatives like Bluesky, which I also found were turning into dens of anger. I also started getting increasingly involved in online arguments and petty squabbles, sometimes with disastrous results.

That kept going for about a year, and I honestly can say that it was having a negative effect on my mental health, I’ve never been a negative person, and yet I kept seeking out all of this festering anger pits on purpose. Ragebait. Click. Ragebait. Click. Ragebait. Click.

Then over a year ago, I don’t remember when, I just turned everything off, got up and picked up a book. Then I re-read Books 1-7 of The Wheel of Time in a few months, just checking back often. And even now I’m still online, but I spent less time doomscrolling. I blocked and muted all sources of negativity. I trimmed my lists, and if I needed to check back on a subject that may anger me again, I tried to do it during a busy period when I wouldn’t be tempted to jump back in. At some point I even decided to try to cut my Twitter presence altogether (Narrator: it didn’t work).

It’s been over a year that I have kept my self-imposed ragebait fast, and it has been amazing. I am enjoying social media again, and I don’t feel like a male channeller touching the tainted half of the One Power every time I go online (to keep using Wheel of Time references). There are full days in which I don’t log back in, and I’m fine with that.

I don’t know if this type of diet is possible for other people, but it is highly recommended. So many people feel angry nowadays that it has become a bit of a theme. So don’t. I won’t tell you to go out and touch grass, but at least turn off your feed for a while, the platforms are designed to keep you permanently angry and in fear. So don’t engage with the anger. Don’t repost. Don’t respond. Don’t retweet. Don’t feed the anger. Don’t give in to the fear.

After all, remember. Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.