if everyone jumped into the Rideau canal, would you?
We’re long removed from an age where young people used the internet for things like online banking, forum posting, playing Club Penguin, browsing Wikipedia, and posting dozens of pictures from last weekend’s party on Facebook. 45 per cent of American teens are online almost constantly, and it seems most of young people’s time online these days is simply spent scrolling on social media.
The increased power and speed of smartphones have led to a rise in allowing algorithms to dictate what we do while we’re online, as we constantly refresh TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram searching for more dopamine.
This mindless scrolling can be classified specifically, by terms like ‘doomscrolling’, which Merriam-Webster defines as the “tendency to continue to surf or scroll through bad news, even though that news is saddening, disheartening, or depressing”.
We’ve all been guilty of this at times, but of course, some people are more prone to it, and there’s evolutionary evidence as to why our brains love it. Psychiatrist Dr.Ken Yeager explains, if our ancestors could learn about all the ways they could potentially be in danger, they would be able to avoid those fates. Our brain is hardwired to enjoy looking at the negative side of things.
As we indulge in the luxury of scrolling through TikTok for hours on end, the first thing we must realize is that the comfort derived from constant digital engagement is a privilege that is simply infeasible, even unfathomable, for many in the world. It seems elementary, like something we all learned about school a dozen years ago, and have long stopped thinking about. People were happy long before social media was a thing, and people will be just fine without it.
The second thing we must realize is that TikTok could be, and probably is, harming our brains. UT Health San Antonio psychiatrist Dr. Barbara Robles-Ramamurthy uses the term “TikTok brain” to refer to harmful circumstances in which children consume so much short-form video content that their attention span is drastically altered. It’s not just in our imaginations — TikTok brain is a real thing.
Because short-form content changes our attention spans, it causes our brain to beg us for more dopamine, and more short videos. But even though it may feel like we have the entirety of the world’s knowledge in your hands when we are on that damned ‘For You’ page, it’s an illusion.
Most topics can’t be explained with a quick reactionary video. Things have nuance, something that is often lost when content creators or other users attempt to sum up topics in just a sentence or two.
And just because TikTok and other social media page’s manipulative algorithms may persuade one to spend more time on the couch scrolling than in the real world, it doesn’t change the reality that we still live in a physical environment in close contact with other human beings.
Spending time online doesn’t just take you away from spending precious time with your friends, family, and physical activities, but also leads to damaging feelings. According to a University of Tennessee Chattanooga study, envy and worry were the most common emotions to experience following social media use.
I’m not saying that apps like TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram should be flat out avoided. I think I might become a bigger hypocrite than Elon Musk is on free speech if I said that. But I am saying to ignore your brain’s constant craving for negativity, and to also recognize that there exists a beautiful world offline.
The more negativity you interact with on social media, the more negativity TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram will feed you. Don’t let your brain trick you into thinking you should be consuming endless amounts of it. The current trend on TikTok is not the most important thing happening in the world — so put the phone down and spend time with your loved ones.
Ask your friends to have a movie night, instead of watching a movie piece-by-three-minute piece on some random TikToker’s account. Read a book, watch a YouTube video, or research online about topics that interest you, rather than trusting what someone online is saying for clicks. Go watch interviews with celebrities in full, instead of listening to an out-of-context soundbite while simultaneously watching a Subway Surfers clip at the bottom of the screen. Your well-being will thank you.
