The Doomscrolling Problem

How many times have you picked up your phone for a quick check and looked up forty-five minutes later feeling worse than before? The feed delivers a steady stream of outrage, fear, and argument — and something in you keeps scrolling.

The Bible didn't predict smartphones. But it understood the human tendency to become what we consume.

Psalm 1 opens the entire Psalter with a choice. The blessed person doesn't passively absorb whatever comes their way. Instead, "their delight is in the Law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night."

The word "meditate" means to turn something over repeatedly. Your brain does the same thing with your feed — it simply turns over outrage instead of truth. The psalmist says the person who chooses wisely is "like a tree planted by streams of water." The one who doesn't is "like chaff that the wind blows away." One is rooted. The other is carried by whatever is trending.

Solomon wrote in Proverbs 4: "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." In Hebrew, the "heart" encompasses mind, will, and emotions together. It is the core of who you are.

Every doomscroll session deposits something into that core — fear, anger, comparison, despair. And it flows back out into your relationships, your decisions, your peace. You are not just spending time. You are shaping yourself.

Jesus made a striking observation in Matthew 6: "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness."

He was speaking about what you fix your attention on. What you look at floods your entire being with either light or darkness. The algorithm is not neutral. What you consume shapes what you become.

Paul offered what may be the most counter-algorithm instruction ever written in Philippians 4: "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things."

This is not denial. It is intentional attention. Paul was not saying to ignore reality. He was saying: do not let the worst of reality be the only thing your mind processes. You have a choice about what you meditate on.

Psalm 46 speaks directly into the noise: "Be still, and know that I am God." In a world that profits from your anxiety, stillness is not passivity — it is trust. Silence is not emptiness. It is making room for the voice that matters most.

Your attention is the most valuable thing you possess. Every app, every platform, every algorithm is competing for it. The Bible says to give it to the One who actually deserves it — and to let everything else fall into its proper place.