‘Bloomscrolling’ is the internet’s answer to all the doom and gloom online

Could bloomscrolling help alleviate Gen Z’s burgeoning online anxiety? (Picture: Getty Images) How much time do you spend scrolling on TikTok? Currently, the average user typically dedicates around 11 hours to the app each week, some of which will no doubt be spent doomscrolling. This compulsive, addictive habit of consuming negative or distressing content often takes place at night. You innocently watch one video about political unrest in South America and, before you know it, it’s 4am, you’re consumed with anxiety, and you’ve concocted a plan to escape to the woods and start a new life. Officially fed up with this cycle, many are now embracing ‘bloomscrolling’, a trend that encourages TikTokers to curate their feeds with uplifting, inspirational, joyful, and soothing content. It’s a promising concept, but experts warn it might not have the long-lasting effects we desire. Young people are switching negative news for cute puppy videos (Picture: Getty Images) Originally coined by wellness brand nomie, bloomscrolling is specifically designed to help calm your nervous system. Think of it as the anti-doomscroll, with the key difference that bloomscrolling is an intentional act, rather than something that’s simply served to us. How do I start ‘bloomscrolling’? The algorithm might feel like an impossible beast at times, but if you purposefully disengage from certain kinds of content, you can curate a social media feed that doesn’t fill you with dread. Ask Metro Use AI to go deeper into the stories you care about – powered by Metro and trusted publications. Nomie suggests spending 10 minutes or so scrolling through your main social media feed to see how your body feels after each post. If you notice things like tightness in your chest or your jaw beginning to clench, this might be an indication that your nervous system is interpreting the content you’re consuming as a threat. And in this case, the logical next step is to try unfollowing or muting the accounts that trigger feelings of anxiety, and instead engage with content that brings you joy. Then, it’s time to start adding in the stuff you do want to see — which means seeking it out and actively engaging with it, in turn telling your algorithm, ‘more of this please’. If you’re not sure what to look for, you can’t really go wrong with following pages that share cute videos of puppies finding their forever home or creators who capture beautiful moments in nature. Would you give bloomscrolling a try? Yes, it seems like a positive practice.Check No, I'm not interested in that.Check I might give it a try and see if it works for me.Check TikTok users who’ve given bloomscrolling a go have described it as ‘healing’, with @let’sgoforawanda saying it’s ‘way more productive than doomscrolling.’ Under one video explaining the trend, @audsjourneytoahappymind adds that ‘seeing uplifting content really does help’. ‘I love this so much!’, @MotherGoose adds, ‘This helps to stop the guilt of constant TikTok scrolling.’ Why is doomscrolling so bad for you? Alex Sharpe, associate lecturer and PhD candidate in Psychology at the University of Chichester, is one of the leading researchers in the UK on doomscrolling. In his opinion, one of the most concerning aspects of this phenomenon is that it’s so new that experts aren’t able to accurately predict the effects on our future mental health. Scrolling can be self-soothing, but if you constantly engage with negative and or anxiety-inducing content it can be pretty damaging (Picture: Getty Images) While his recent paper, which confirmed that doomscrolling is consistently associated with anxiety, depression, stress, emotional exhaustion, reduced resilience, and a more pessimistic worldview, he tells Metro that ‘it’s difficult to say what the ultimate long-term consequences will look like.’ Some studies have indicated that prolonged exposure to doomscrolling could very well lead to difficulty sleeping, long-term anxiety, and depression. However, as Alex emphasises, there simply isn’t enough research yet to know the full extent of the story. Can bloomscrolling help your mental health? So, could bloomscrolling be the thing to stop doomscrolling in its tracks? Alex is hopeful, but also realistic. In his aforementioned paper, released earlier this year, he refers to a 2021 experiment which involved something called ‘kindness scrolling’. ‘Participants were randomly assigned to view negative COVID news, uplifting stories of kindness, or no information,’ Alex explains. ‘Doomscrolling reduced positive mood compared with the control. Kindness scrolling didn’t cause that same drop.’ ‘However,’ he continues, ‘it also didn’t lift wellbeing above the baseline.’ ‘So, it appears to buffer against the immediate emotional dip, but we don’t know whether it helps in the longer term.’ Ultimately, he says that the evidence that bloomscrolling could be a helpful tool is ‘cautiously encouraging but also very limited’. With features like ‘infinite scroll’ and the oh-so-dangerous ragebait algorithm still at play, it’ll likely take a lot more than videos of flowers in bloom to fix this problem. But it’s a start, right? 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