In this day and age, the young are always glued to their cellular devices. One activity in particular that involves excessive amounts of scrolling in a short period of time is called Doomscrolling. According to the Oxford Dictionary, Doomscrolling is “the action of constantly scrolling through moving down through text on a screen.” With a lack of physical activity and little motivation among American teens, there’s a negative impact as a result.
Every generation has had its ups and downs, but for Gen Z & Alpha, doomscrolling is serious. Some could argue to great lengths that our brains are devolving. For example, a term such as “brainrot” has been surfacing online throughout the past year and is associated with “a decline in cognitive abilities such as attention, memory, and mood,” quoted from Nationwide Children’s. A reduced attention span is genuinely considered a negative in the average individual’s life. Apart from headaches and a lack of motivation, side effects also include insomnia, overstimulation, and the feeling of social isolation despite being “hyperconnected.”
Consuming data from a cell phone isn’t always bad, but most of the time, it’s not as reliable as picking up a newspaper from the local news outlet. The dangers of this cause teenagers to find big news on social media to appeal more to them, and with a low attention span, this could become a severe problem. Not everything people will see on the internet is a good source of information; this has not only been proven by a variety of sources, such as MIT Media Lab, but is common knowledge, yet if someone doesn’t have a stable attention span, they might only rely on a platform such as TikTok or Instagram for breaking news on a daily basis.
The key to preventing the degradation of our attention spans is to engage in hobbies such as more social time outside, exercising, reading a book, playing an instrument, and the list goes on. Overall, it is important to prioritize one’s mental health rather than feed meaningless distractions that consume the day.
