DoomScrolling Is Destroying Your Perspective

Someone in the chat asked a fantastic question — why did the world become so nihilistic? And I think the answer is multifaceted, but I’ll tell you this much — the internet didn’t help.
The internet has been a gift and a curse to humanity. It’s connected people who would have otherwise never connected. It’s created opportunities, communities, and access to information that previous generations couldn’t have imagined. You can argue it’s a net positive, and I’d probably agree. But as much positive as it’s brought, it’s come with a trail of negatives that we’re only now starting to fully understand.
We’re in an era of doom scrolling. Social media is algorithmic and curated — it shows you more of what you engage with, and what drives engagement is often outrage, fear, and negativity. If all you did was watch the news and doom scroll through social media, you would absolutely think the world is on fire and you’d probably be miserable. It will start to weigh on your psyche. That’s not a reflection of reality — that’s a reflection of what you’re being exposed to. I just did a video about this — you have to curate your feed intentionally, keep things in context, and understand that what you see on social media is not the real world.
But the part that really concerns me is young people. Think about being a young person right now. You’ve got the education system telling you that the world as you know it is basically going to end because of climate issues. You’ve got social media reinforcing doom and negativity at every turn. You’ve got very few people in positions of influence telling them that things are going to be okay, that there’s reason for optimism, that the world isn’t ending. They’re trapped in this cycle of nihilism being fed to them from multiple directions, and it’s no wonder so many of them feel hopeless.
The world is not as bad as your feed makes it look. That’s not naive optimism — it’s perspective. And perspective is the thing that’s most missing from the way people consume information right now.