Andy’s Quick Hits (24): Do you have a brain wired for doomscrolling?

Doomscrolling is a term used to describe scrolling through negative news, particularly on social media. Suggesting a bizarre attraction to the negative — often in a depressed mood at that. Some people seem to find it compelling even though they know it won’t do them any good.

So what is happening in the brain, or rather, what is it that leads some people to seek out future negative information over which they have no control? This is the question a group of researchers asked at Washington University School of Medicine.

For example, if you could do a DNA test to see if you are going to get cancer late in life would you take that test?

The question seems to give two separate answers — some people definitely want to know, and others definitely don’t want to know. The reason this is interesting is that when it comes to positive rewards there seems to be consistent interest in wanting to know.

“People’s brains aren’t well equipped to deal with the information age,”

The researchers in question used macaques — small primates — who also showed precisely this preference. All consistently wanting to know if they were about to receive a positive reward but when it came to a negative effect…