>[!abstract] >Doomscrolling or doomsurfing is the act of spending an excessive amount of time reading large quantities of news, particularly negative news, on the web and social media. The concept was coined around 2020, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.... The practice of doomscrolling can be compared to an older phenomenon from the 1970s called the [[Mean world syndrome|mean world syndrome]] (Wikipedia, 2025). >[!quote] >In the 1860s, Charles Baudelaire bemoaned what we might now call doomscrolling: > > "Every newspaper, from the first line to the last, is nothing but a tissue of horrors. Wars, crimes, thefts, licentiousness, torture, crimes of princes, crimes of nations, individual crimes, an intoxicating spree of universal atrocity. And it’s this disgusting aperitif that the civilized man consumes at breakfast each morning... I do not understand how a pure hand can touch a newspaper without a convulsion of disgust." > >([[McGuinness, 2025]]). >[!related] >- **North** (upstream): — >- **West** (similar): [[Mean world syndrome]] >- **East** (different): — >- **South** (downstream): —