Whenever I go on Instagram or Youtube, I see a bunch of hateful content on there, and just feel inclined to look at the comments, which just makes me feel worse because the comments are even worse than the actual content usually. My content algorithm recently started to give me more polarizing topics, mainly politics and LGBTQ rights, after I started looking into the recent rumors of Hunter Schafer being eyed to play Zelda in the upcoming movie (which I support btw), and also how ive been using them more and more as a news source. Since that happened I just feel inclined to look at content about those topics to see what people think, and then what I mostly see is people being hateful and being rude to people just for living their lives, mostly LGBTQ people. I want to see what people think about things online and gauge reactions to shape some of my opinions on things and get different perspectives on them, but all the hate content and comments, mostly without an actual point expect to be rude, makes me feel like I’m wrong in my own assesment about things when I get two polar opposite sides on things, mainly on trans rights. As I keep on seeing the content, it makes me feel like I should change my own views I already had in order to go with what alot of people think, even though I don’t believe them and find it hateful. Wanted to see if anyone had any advice on my current situation, I feel like I should keep seeing what people think about things, but as I see more of the more hateful content, the more it makes me feel worse each time I do.
Stopping Doomscrolling
r/Advice
Comments
SYou’re not alone doomscrolling hateful takes can really mess with your head. It’s okay to step back. You don’t need to torture yourself to know what you believe in your heart is right. Curate your feed, mute/block stuff that drains you, and give your mind breaks. It’s okay to protect your peace your compassion matters more than angry strangers online
That’s the algorithm. It’s not you. It’s the algorithm.
These websites want to keep you on the website so that you keep feeling content and generating ad revenue. So the way to do this is to serve you up new content to watch. They figure out what you like by what you click on.
This place that you have found yourself is literally the hole to many extremists views, and all the darker places on the internet. This is how they get there. They just keep clicking on the content.
So I would recommend that you figure out how to dislike content or tell the algorithm to show you less ( for example on Reddit you can click the dots in the corner and say ‘show me less’), and also to stop clicking and visiting that content.