![]() ![]() Over the last decade, social networks have upended the way we live our lives. “Because when we are enraged, we are engaged, and the longer we are engaged the more money the platform can make from us.” “Behind the screen are impassive algorithms designed to ensure that the most outrageous information gets to our attention first,” writes the academic Julia Bell in her new book Radical Attention. Those evolutionary traits mean that the most anxiety-inducing content is often the most profitable for social platforms like Reddit, Facebook and Twitter. “As a species we are inherently hardwired to respond first to threatening information,” says Patrick Kennedy-Williams, a psychologist who treats patients for climate-related anxieties. But social media platforms also play a crucial role, given that they are designed to keep you scrolling and engaged for as long as possible. Presidential election to the racial injustice protests. There’s no shortage of reasons for heightened anxieties this year, from the COVID-19 pandemic to the U.S. As the pandemic confined billions of people to their homes in 2020, the word “doomscrolling” entered the lexicon, referring to the temptation to compulsively scroll through social media platforms filled with apocalyptic news-and the difficulty stopping despite feelings of dread and anxiety. If Sayles’ story sounds familiar, that’s because for many of us, it is.
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