How to Stop Scrolling Coronavirus News for Like 5 Minutes

The coronavirus pandemic can lead to an obsession with checking our phones. Here’s how to change your news habit.

Photo: Jose Luis Palaez/Getty Images

We try to make sense of the biggest news event of our lifetime, it feels natural, even calming, to turn to one of our most trusted habits: the flick, scroll, click. It’s been there for us in times of anxiety, of boredom, of grief — the mindless, calming power of immersing ourselves in the internet.

But right now, what feels like a self-soothing act is anything but: Each shocking link ratchets up our emotions and gives the middle finger to the prefrontal cortex of our brains, which helps regulate our emotions and make sound decisions.

And we’re wired to keep that going. Our infinite scroll creates a dopamine loop — you seek pleasure, get a reward, repeat.

Don’t forget that feeds are also engineered by algorithms that deliver images and ads created specifically for us, conjuring the sense that each photo or news morsel —…