Americans woke up Feb. 24, 2022, to news that Russia had invaded Ukraine. Phones began buzzing around midnight EDT on Oct. 7 as Hamas began to attack Israel. And the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore collapsed around 1:30 a.m. on March 26. Waking up to bad news — or staying awake to doom scroll — has become a feature of modern life in the age of the 24-hour news cycle.
Northeastern University mental health expert Kristen Lee says this constant stream of bad news can have a “profound impact” on our well-being, sometimes leading to feelings of helplessness, depression, paralytic anxiety and a misunderstanding of the world. “We are inundated with a lot of information, misinformation and disinformation constantly,” says Lee, a teaching professor in behavioral science within the health care and biotechnology domain at Northeastern. “It can really affect our well-being if we are being misled into a perception that the world is completely on fire.”
