can often make one feel anxious, stressed, fearful, depressed, and isolated. Individuals who suffer with cognitive distortion can experience an increase in ruminative thinking and panic attacks due to doomscrolling. Studies also suggest a connection between consumption of bad news with higher levels of anxiety, depression, stress, and even symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Research Professors of psychology at the University of Sussex conducted a study in which participants watched television news consisting of "positive-, neutral-, and negative valenced material". The study revealed that participants who watched the negative news programs showed an increase in anxiety, sadness, and catastrophic tendencies regarding personal worries. A study conducted by psychology researchers in conjunction with the Huffington Post found that participants who watched three minutes of negative news in the morning were 27% more likely to have reported experiencing a bad day six to eight hours later. Comparatively, the group who watched solutions-focused news stories reported a good day 88% of the time. Physical effects Clinical psychologist Dr. Carla Marie Manly suggested that for some people, doomscrolling can be addictive, creating a feeling of safety and security during uncertain times. Experts also say doomscrolling can disrupt sleep patterns, lower attentiveness, and cause overeating. Clinicians found that fear-based media can also weaken a person's ability to process trauma. Deborah Serani, a professor at the Gordon F. Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies at Adelphi University says this type of media triggers a defensive operation, more specifically, she found that the first line of defense is encapsulation. During encapsulation, a person "attempts to enclose or seal off representations of the trauma", resulting in denial or disavowal. Experts describe the phenomenon similar to the act of "shutting out", and can result in fatigue, flat speech, and cognitive decline. News avoidance Some people have begun coping with the abundance of negative news stories by avoiding news altogether. A study from 2017 to 2022 showed that news avoidance is increasing, and that 38% of people admitted to sometimes or often actively avoiding the news in 2022, up from 29% in 2017. Even some journalists have admitted to avoiding the news; journalist Amanda Ripley wrote that "people producing the news themselves are struggling, and while they aren’t likely to admit it, it is warping the coverage." She also identified ways she believes could help fix the problem, such as intentionally adding more hope, agency, and dignity into