Doomsurfing and doomscrolling mediate psychological distress in COVID‐19 lockdown: Implications for awareness of cognitive biases

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to a significant increase in the consumption of the internet for work, leisure time activities, and has also generated substantial amounts of anxiety, and uncertainty, which has lead individuals to spend a lot of time surfing the internet for the latest news on developments in the COVID-19 crisis. This ends up as scrolling or surfing through a lot of pessimistic news items. This search for information during COVID-19 is apparently influenced by a number of cognitive biases as well as mediated by poor affect regulation skills. Thus, there is a need to address these cognitive biases and promote affect regulation strategies across health settings.