Relationship Between Doom-scrolling and Mental Health under the Influence of Recommendation Algorithms

Abstract

Doom-scrolling is an entirely new concept in the study of mental health and has attracted considerable societal attention over the past few years. This paper is divided into two studies on the relationship between doom-scrolling and mental health: Study 1 explained how the doom-scrolling phenomenon occurs by analyzing the underlying logic of the social media personalized recommendation algorithm, while in Study 2, 15 items of the Doom-scrolling Scale were confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. Different reliability coefficients support the scales high reliability and prove the scales applicability to the target group. In Study 2, it was further explained that there is a significant negative impact relationship between misfortune rolling and mental health of happiness index. The structural equation model shows a significant negative relationship between doom-scrolling and mental health. This pioneering research on doom-scrolling emphasizes the impact of this concept on both individuals and society.