Looking for bad news or 'doom scrolling'

 Since the beginning of the pandemic, I keep on scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. I find myself in bed at night scrolling news sites and knowing this is not healthy for me… so why am I doing this?” Easy to explain: I am looking for (somehow) good news.

It’s a question many doom scrollers have been asking themselves. There are multiple reasons why the urge to read may be so strong: the feeling of safety in knowledge, especially during difficult times; the design of social-media platforms that constantly refresh and boost the loudest voices; and, of course, the human fascination aspect.

Beyond knowing intuitively that doom scrolling makes us feel awful, studies conducted during the pandemic have corroborated this, linking both anxiety and depression to the consumption of Covid-19 related media and increased time spent on smartphones. So, why do we keep endlessly scrolling ­– and why can the practice feel oddly soothing? And could there actually be surprising upsides to keeping our eyes locked on our feeds?

“The precursor to going online was that people would watch the 11 o’clock news, [which] was terrifying,” says Dean McKay, a Fordham University psychology professor who specialises in compulsive behaviour and anxiety disorders. That terror, when witnessed from the comfort of the viewer’s home, however, had a potentially calming effect. McKay describes the attitude as people acknowledging “things are pretty horrible, [but] I’m comfortable, so I'm going to be able to sleep well tonight knowing that [I can feel good about] my station in life”.

McKay suggests doom scrolling could be a “modern equivalent”. But, unlike the 2300 news, it doesn’t stop at a fixed hour. During the uniquely uncertain and scary times of 2020, it’s no surprise that people like Bernstein scrolled well into the night. They needed information – at first because little was available about the virus, and then because they got sucked into the never-ending news cycle about it.

As Pamela Rutledge, director of the California-based Media Psychology Research Center, puts it, doom scrolling “really just describes the compulsive need to try and get answers when we’re afraid”.  After all, we do have to assess whether new information constitutes a threat. “We are biologically driven to attend to that,” says Rutledge.

Doom scrolling really just describes the compulsive need to try and get answers when we’re afraid.

“Unfortunately, journalism to some degree plays to that tendency,” she adds. Provocative headlines and stories draw in readers because they elicit fear and urgency. “There’s a sense of, if I know all the latest news, I can better protect myself and my family.” Pamela Rutledge, I strongly agree with you!

Anyway, I am still looking for "somehow" good news to write about. Maybe, I'll be getting a chance in the near future.

WITH BEETHOVEN UNDER PALMS (VII)

Chapter VII: A series of transitions

My buddy and best friend Jürgen invited me to dinner. We were at our favorite Italian restaurant in the elegant part of Berlin Zehlendorf. We talked about times gone by. Yes - gone by. Well, I agreed and tried to explain that I really underwent a series of transitions. "And what are we doing together again?" Jürgen asked. I shrugged my shoulders.

 As I mentioned earlier: 1980 - the year of great upheavals? Up and downs? Oh yes... . 

My job as Editorial Assistant for law magazines made me a lot of inner reassurance. After one year, my then publisher told me, "Well, I told you - learning my doing". For this job, you don't need to study law!" Another project was on my desk. JURA - law, or legal education, a magazine for law students. By editing all posts and articles, I found myself back in a real law study. I was obsessed with doing a very good job. "My" authors belonged to the elite of German lawyers: attorneys, judges and politicians. One of the latters was the then German Federal Minister of Foreign Minister, who would sign my appointment as German Honorary Consul for the island of Mindanao many many years later.

My job was totally fulfilling. Ludwig van Beethoven was with me day and night. Some palm trees were still a long way off. I became a member of the Berlin Theatre Club. My publisher's wife Blandine Ebinger recommended me to become a member. 

"Some things can only be said softly, some things can only be done secretly". Friedrich Hollaender had written this, Hollaender, the one with "The Blue Angel". For Blandine did he write this  because she was his muse. And his former wife. Ebinger became acquainted with Friedrich Hollaender in 1919, and with him she became heavily invested as a performer, writer, and composer in the Berlin cabaret scene in the 1920s, beginning in the cabaret Schall und Rauch and the Café des Westens. She recorded many of her husband's, Friedrich Hollaender, cabaret songs, including the set of songs entitled Lieder eines armen Mädchens (Songs of a poor girl). Ebinger emigrated to the United States in 1937, returning to Berlin in 1947. She moved to Munich, where she met her second husband, the publisher Helwig Hassepflug, in 1961. They eventually settled back in Berlin, where she continued her career in the theater and as an actress on television productions.

Helwig Hassenpflug, my then publisher, became my mentor and my father figure. I would work for him and his company till 1999. As a Berlin Theatre Club member, I met a lot of TV and movie actors and actresses as well as performers from classics until pop - even German rock legend Udo Lindenberg in Hamburg or the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra with star conductor Herbert von Karajan. And, my music library kept up growing ... .

On the other (sad) side: my list of friends got small and smaller and smaller.

My buddy Jürgen and I spent our last trip together in the Holy Land - in Israel. A sad good bye to each other. Jürgen planned to get married in South Korea.

Another one of my relationships had broken up. My mother got cancer. My father left us because of another woman.

I went to the nearest travel office planning to book a flight - taking me as far away as possible. The sales lady asked me, "Sir, I think you love Asia. How about the Philippines?" I agreed. Berlin - Frankfurt - Bangkok - Manila. And since I got three Filipina penfriends during that time, the Philippine round trip ticket Manila-Davao City-Zamboanga City-Manila was added.

(To be continued!)