Emily Haines from Metric
Have you ever wondered why we doomscroll?
The constant penchant for scrolling on our social media feeds might have a root cause, and the lead singer to a popular alt-rock band might have some answers about why.
Emily Haines from the band Metric is one of my favorite vocalists and songwriters. On a recent album, called Formentera, there’s a song entitled Doomscroller.
It made me wonder if she was thinking about social media when she wrote the song. Her answer surprised me.
“For me, when I use the term doomscrolling, I am talking about endlessly scrolling into the depths of the major issues of our time — climate, war, social division, entrenched economic inequality, and the ongoing permutations and consequences of the pandemic,” she says. “It's actually the opposite of distraction. It's full immersion in the big topics over which most of us feel quite powerless.”
That’s a brilliant answer, and is not something I’ve thought about with social media. For years, I’ve viewed social media as a distraction, a way to tune out from the world. I’m scrolling to find relief, and maybe a few cat memes. What Haines is suggesting is that we’re actually trying to tune in, to find answers.
“The lyrics for our song Doomscroller address this feeling of trying to stay informed and educate ourselves in a never ending news cycle to the point that we can't stop,” she added. The lyrics offer a hint about how this works, and it’s a challenging indictment: "I can't seem to shut it down, until the worst is over, and it's never over."
For me, that’s a game-changer.
I released a book earlier this year where I mentioned the idea of constant searching. We’re trying to satiate ourselves and find relief, but the relief keeps inching farther away, like a mouse trap we can’t even see. And we’re the mouse.
In some ways, it should not surprise me that a favorite songwriter of mine described doomscrolling so well in a song. Haines is a literate, adept songsmith who can capture a deep sentiment in just a short phrase. (It helps that the band also writes such compelling music.) She elaborated on the idea of doomscrolling being something that is an attempt to ward off distraction, and maybe that is what makes it so addicting.
There are good things to invest in, some of them are on social media and other apps. Sometimes, the good thing is not the distraction but, as we all know, social media scrolling does use precious resources of mental and emotional energy.
“Try to remember that all the data you are being inundated with is there to serve you, not the other way around,” she explained. “My hope is that our music is actually a point of focus, something of substance to anchor the listener, a meticulously crafted escape and a sonic oasis offering clarity and a sense of freedom from all the meaningless, time-consuming distractions that constantly surround us in the shallow attention economy of modern life.”
Another good point. The challenge is not so much what you are investing in, it’s how much you are throttling that investment. If social media is more of a pursuit than a distraction, it is always good to ask questions about what we are all pursuing, and if that is leading to a healthy balance in life.
For me, sometimes a better investment is in music. Instagram can wait.
