Un-doomscrolling

Tonight I felt flat. My wife's been ill for what feels like an age, Lucie's been really poorly, and I've been doing everything. The washing, the cooking, the school runs, the worry. There's no easy way to say it. I'm struggling.

Before bed the house is finally quiet. I'd done everything that needed doing and just thought I'd have a scroll. Check social media. See what's happening.

Everything seemed designed to compound how I was feeling. Bad news stories everywhere. The kind of doom scrolling that pulls you deeper instead of offering any kind of escape. Then Instagram's algorithm decided to show me a load of reels about why men struggle with their emotions. Exactly what I needed when I'm already drowning.

I could feel it all piling on. The tiredness, the stress, the endless stream of content designed to keep me engaged by making me feel worse. My phone is a trillion dollar business designed to keep me scrolling, and tonight it was doing a fantastic job.

Then up pops a dad joke clip. "Why shouldn't you buy trousers from Ukraine? Because Chernobyl fall out."

Stupid. Terrible pun. The kind of joke that would make my kids groan.

And I'm laughing. Properly laughing. All of a sudden, the weight lifts a bit. The world seems like a better place, if only for a moment.

I guess that's life in a nutshell. Not the endless scrolling through manufactured concern and algorithmic manipulation of my emotional state. Not the reels telling me what's wrong with me. Just a stupid joke that catches you off guard and reminds you that not everything has to be heavy.

The irony isn't lost on me. The same platform that was dragging me down also pulled me back up. The same algorithm that fed me doom also served up something that made me smile. Perhaps that's the real problem with these things. They know how to make us feel terrible, and they know how to make us feel better. They're just much better at the former because it keeps us engaged for longer.