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Here's how to snap out of doomscrolling

In a pandemic that forces us to stay home, bingeing on doom-and-gloom news feels irresistible. Health experts offer ways to break the habit.

Published Fri, Jul 17, 2020 · 09:50 PM

Covid-19

YOUR phone alarm goes off at 6am. You check some news sites and Facebook. It's bad news after bad news. Coronavirus cases keep climbing, and so do deaths. Children can't go back to school. Your favourite restaurant and barbershop are still closed. People are losing their jobs.

Everything is awful. The world as we remember it has ended. Next thing you know, it's 9am You haven't climbed out of your pit of despair yet to even shower. You repeat this masochistic exercise during your lunch break - and again while getting ready for bed.

This experience of sinking into emotional quicksand while bingeing on doom-and-gloom news is so common that there's now Internet lingo for it: "doomscrolling." Exacerb…