From Doom-Scrolling to News Avoidance: Limiting News as a Wellbeing Strategy During COVID Lockdown

Mannell, Kate; Meese, James

doi:10.1080/1461670x.2021.2021105

Cited by 29 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Census Bureau, 2019). Further, the plethora of traumatic news in 2020, including news of anti-Black police violence and the COVID pandemic, may have contributed to news exhaustion or burnout among Black individuals (Campbell & Valera, 2020) and led them to engage in news avoidance as a form of self-protection (Mannell & Meese, 2022; Ytre-Arne & Moe, 2021). If racial differences in COVID news exposure are replicated, future research should explore which factors contribute to reduced COVID news exposure among Black individuals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Doomscrolling: Prospective associations between daily COVID news exposure, internalizing symptoms, and substance use among sexual and gender minority individuals assigned female at birth.

Dyar¹,

Crosby²,

Newcomb³

et al. 2024

Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity

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Cross-sectional studies have demonstrated associations between COVID news exposure, anxiety, and depression. However, longitudinal research examining the directionality of these associations is extremely limited. Further, most studies have focused on the general population and neglected sexual and gender minority individuals (SGM), a population disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. To address these limitations, the current study utilized data from a 30-day diary study of SGM assigned female at birth (N = 429). We examined concurrent and prospective associations between COVID news exposure, depressed and anxious affect, COVID distress, substance use, and motives for use. Further, we examined associations between cumulative COVID news exposure across the diary period and prospective changes in anxiety, depression, and COVID distress. When participants were exposed to more COVID news, they experienced more depressed and anxious affect, more COVID distress, less positive affect, and were more likely to use alcohol and cannabis to cope. Further, when participants were exposed to more COVID news, they experienced subsequent increases in depressed affect, decreases in positive affect, and increases in the likelihood of using cannabis to cope. Findings also provided evidence of bidirectional prospective associations between COVID news exposure and COVID distress and of a cumulative impact of COVID news exposure on anxiety, depression, and COVID distress. Findings suggest that individuals should balance the need to remain informed about the pandemic and their own mental health when considering how much COVID news to consume.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Doomscrolling: Prospective associations between daily COVID news exposure, internalizing symptoms, and substance use among sexual and gender minority individuals assigned female at birth.

Dyar¹,

Crosby²,

Newcomb³

et al. 2024

Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity

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“…Research suggests that COVID-19 has harnessed considerable amounts of media attention. The pandemic has fuelled an uptick in the consumption of television and online news ( Broersma and Swart, 2022 ; Van Aelst et al, 2021 ; Vermeer et al., 2022 ) and has even led to “doom-scrolling” ( Mannell and Meese, 2022 )—excessive consumption of pandemic-related news.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A topic among others—examining the attention dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic through interviews with Finnish journalists

Harjuniemi

2022

Journalism

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Media research has shown that media attention to pandemics is largely driven by rising case numbers, policy responses and scientific breakthroughs. However, less is known about the issue attention dynamics that feed a decline in the media attention to pandemics. By building on the literature on issue attention and on 18 semi-structured interviews with Finnish journalists, this article explores the issue attention dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic. The article identifies three factors that lead to a decrease in the attention that a pandemic receives. First, issue fatigue diminishes the amount of attention while issue competition replaces the pandemic with other issues on the news agenda. Second, changes in the course of the pandemic—such as the introduction of vaccines— affect media attention. Third, this article illustrates how news media organisations try to balance informing the public of the risks related to the pandemic and not overreacting to the threat it poses.

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“…Characterized by emotional fatigue and detachment, burnout was traditionally applied to volunteer and workplace settings (Demerouti et al 2001;Freudenberger 1974), with particular hold on the social and humanitarian services (Bride et al 2004;Cummings et al 2021;Maslach and Jackson 1984;Maslach, Schaufeli, and Leiter 2001;Michalopoulos and Aparicio 2012;Sprang, Craig, and Clark 2011). Today, burnout has expansive reach with ties to 24/7 news cycles (Boukes and Vliegenthart 2017;Mannell and Meese 2022), social media ''doom-scrolling'' (Han 2018;Sharma, Lee, and Johnson 2022), and activist participation (Cox 2011), among myriad other sites. 1 The causes of burnout are complex and many, but one factor that spans multiple domains-from humanitarian services to social media newsfeeds-is the exposure of the self to other people's trauma (Boukes and Vliegenthart 2017;Cox 2011;Koutsimani, Montgomery, and Georganta 2019;Mannell and Meese 2022;Maslach and Leiter 2017;Mikolajczak, Gross, and Roskam 2019).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Today, burnout has expansive reach with ties to 24/7 news cycles (Boukes and Vliegenthart 2017;Mannell and Meese 2022), social media ''doom-scrolling'' (Han 2018;Sharma, Lee, and Johnson 2022), and activist participation (Cox 2011), among myriad other sites. 1 The causes of burnout are complex and many, but one factor that spans multiple domains-from humanitarian services to social media newsfeeds-is the exposure of the self to other people's trauma (Boukes and Vliegenthart 2017;Cox 2011;Koutsimani, Montgomery, and Georganta 2019;Mannell and Meese 2022;Maslach and Leiter 2017;Mikolajczak, Gross, and Roskam 2019). We investigate this factor in the present work, enrolling the tools of structural social psychology for a question toward which these tools are especially well-equipped: under what conditions does trauma exposure result in burnout for the self, and to what effect?…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Facing Others’ Trauma: A Role-Taking Theory of Burnout

2022

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The experience of “burnout” is characterized by emotional fatigue and detachment associated with intensive stress. Burnout is prevalent across personal and professional spheres, with increasing cultural salience. Multiple factors can contribute to burnout. Here, we focus on one: exposure to others’ trauma. This circumstance spans domains from social service professions to social media newsfeeds, with potentially deleterious effects on the self. To understand the conditions under which trauma exposure results in burnout, we propose and test a role–taking model. We do so by presenting study participants (N = 723) with a first–person account of intimate partner violence, stimulating an acute instance of trauma exposure. Findings show that higher levels of role–taking increase burnout, with antecedents and outcomes tied to role-taking’s cognitive and affective components. This study clarifies how burnout occurs within the scope of trauma exposure while expanding role–taking research beyond the interpersonal benefits that have monopolized scholarly attention to date.

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From Doom-Scrolling to News Avoidance: Limiting News as a Wellbeing Strategy During COVID Lockdown

Cited by 29 publications

References 30 publications

Doomscrolling: Prospective associations between daily COVID news exposure, internalizing symptoms, and substance use among sexual and gender minority individuals assigned female at birth.

Doomscrolling: Prospective associations between daily COVID news exposure, internalizing symptoms, and substance use among sexual and gender minority individuals assigned female at birth.

A topic among others—examining the attention dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic through interviews with Finnish journalists

Facing Others’ Trauma: A Role-Taking Theory of Burnout

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