ENDLESS FEEDS, ENDLESS FEAR: ALGORITHMIC TRIGGERS OF DOOM-SCROLLING IN FILM AND TV FAN COMMUNITIES

Abstract

Doom‑scrolling has long been a concern of its effects on the mental health of people hanging out across different digital platforms. While much of the current work on doom‑scrolling has focused on news media, little is known about how this phenomenon manifests in more niche digital spaces like film and TV fan communities. However, this research explores the impact of optimizing feed designs on doom‑scrolling behavior in these vivid emotional communities. A quantitative survey was deployed to 200 active members of a fandom community across social media platforms (Twitter, Reddit, Discord, and Instagram) with questions about their algorithmic exposure, how intensely they doom‑scroll through content produced by fan publishers on social media platforms, levels of anxiety at large as well as FOMO, the time spent daily on the aforementioned sites contributed an attempt to control for usage.

Statistical analyses (with descriptive statistics, correlations and linear regression) revealed participants belonging to a group of doom‑scrollers of moderate intensity who were highly engaged, but algorithmic exposure did not predict doom‑scrolling on its own. Doom-scrolling was weakly correlated with FOMO and daily platform usage, indicating that this behavior is driven by other more complex factors in addition to the algorithmic design. The fan communities we studied constitute a novel locus in which to explore the role of emotional investment, communal interaction and creative response in mediating algorithmic effects; thus, extending the literature on these phenomena. Their findings suggest a key role for mixed-methods research to explore these dynamics further and they make recommendations for platform interventions that retain the positive side of fan engagement, but prevent or bypass the compulsive scrolling behaviors which have become intrinsic to their platforms.