We all know TikTok, Instagram Reels, and Youtube Shorts whether you like it or not. But recently, people have been talking about “doom scrolling” and “mindlessly scrolling,” a new way of scrolling on apps such as TikTok, Reels and Shorts. How do you do it? All you need to do is ignore everything in your personal life, relax in whatever way you want and open one of those apps. But can these habits lead to an unsatisfactory report card or not being on top of schoolwork and a horrible attention span?
As you come into Jefferson, it becomes apparent that the work is rigorous and that it is critical to lock in and avoid all kinds of distractions. You now need to learn how to balance school and your personal life. But you also have TikTok, Reels and other apps, and now every single study session is a doomscrolling session that has your stuff for studying on your desk as you prioritize your phone. Watching “Get Ready With Me’s (GRWMS),” unboxings, hauls and a bunch of teenagers dancing to a new trending song in the middle of a street at 10 p.m. is not going to get you anywhere in your academic career and even in your personal life.
Doom scrolling is defined as “a way to spend excessive time online scrolling,” according to Merriam-Webster. Mindless scrolling is swiping and consuming content on social media and websites without consciously knowing we’re doing it. Mindlessly scrolling and doom scrolling are both basically the same harmful things and take a huge toll on your attention span.
Attention span is “the length of time during which one is able to concentrate or remain interested.” Short videos take a huge toll on your attention span because you’re used to getting content in less than 30 seconds, you can’t sit through a 70 minute lecture or even 30 minutes worth of homework. According to a study done by a chain of clinics treating addictions, the average high school student should have about 30 to 40 minutes worth of attention span before becoming occupied with something else. But now because of apps like TikTok, the average student’s attention span is only 10 minutes.
Now that more and more people are realizing the horrible consequences of doom scrolling, they are finding ways to quit and stop the addiction. It got to a point where a network of clinics and hospitals in Switzerland got together to create an anti-TikTok clinic, where young adults who are addicted to TikTok could go. The clinic wants people to find hobbies other than social media and consuming content all day long. The participants are allowed to go on to other social media, but TikTok is completely banned. Many other countries are also debating on whether or not to ban the application.
For example, countries like India, Iran, Armenia, Nepal and Pakistan have banned the app completely from their countries for many different reasons. India banned the application after a border clash with China. Nepal banned the app because it “[disrupted] social harmony and goodwill.” Pakistan also banned the app citing that it promotes “immoral content.” At the same time, countries like Canada, Norway, New Zealand, The United States (USA), and the United Kingdom (UK) banned the app from any devices used by ministers, and federal devices as well as systems.
On Jan. 18 at 10:30 pm EST, TikTok suspended all its operations in the United States due to a ban that was supposed to happen the next day. They indicated that former President Joe Biden and the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) failed to provide clarity. They also stated that “Unless the Biden administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately, TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19.” After President Trump pledged to restore the app, Tiktok thanked Trump in a notification popup after users opened the app to see that it was back.
But in recent years, I have felt that social media, especially TikTok, has become extremely repetitive and now really boring. For example, the use of “Point of View (POV)” in different videos has been overused to the point they become unoriginal ideas. The TikTok community is not being as creative as they used to and generating actually entertaining content that is funny, but they are reusing the same ideas from 2020.
According to the University of North Carolina (UNC) hospitals, doom scrolling can lead to a lack of productivity, poor concentration, as well as mental fatigue. Studies also show that the more time you spend doom scrolling, the more likely you are to experience sleep disturbances, stress-related physical symptoms and lower self-esteem. Given all of these horrible negative cons of doom scrolling, of course, they will play a huge role in your performance at school
A study led by the National Library of Medicine (NIH)’s National Center for Biotechnology Information found that doomscrolling may lead to higher levels of psychological distress and lower levels of mental well-being standards. Other health problems that arise from doom scrolling include worsening depression and anxiety, sleep problems as well as increasing stress hormone levels.
The most important times of our lives that can decide the fate of our future are high school and university. I’m not saying we shouldn’t use social media or TikTok, what I am saying is that the ability to control our time. We need to start using social media wisely and in a controllable manner. Whatever you’re doing, think about the time you’re using and what you can be doing instead that is productive.