😔 Doomscroll Necking: How depression isn't all social media's fault

This last week I got stung by a jellyfish, almost passed out from laughing so hard, and ate chicken nuggets while watching Chicken Run with my kiddos.

Now they know where those delicious nuggs really come from 🤷‍♂️ 

On another note…

Email marketing shouldn’t feel icky.

Jeff’s weekly newsletter teaches you how to make more with email marketing…and feel good about how you did it :)

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10 days ago I was sitting under my giant maple tree, head cranked down looking at Twitter.

My neck hurt from how long I’d been sitting like that, which didn’t make me feel good.

I realized this position was the exact posture of a certain type of person…

And that’s when it hit me that even though it’s news to nobody that social media is linked to depression, it might not be 100% social media’s fault.

Lemme explain…

Charles Darwin realized in 1872 that we don’t just smile when we’re happy… we’re also happy because we smile.

A bunch of studies have found that people who held a pencil in their teeth (which causes your face muscles to form a smile) felt happier.

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Similar studies have found that simply making faces that look like…

• surprise

• disgust

• fear

• sadness

• excitement

• etc

…all make you feel more of that same emotion.

This idea is now known as the Facial Feedback Hypothesis.

So I was today years old when I coined my own idea: The Doomscroll-Necking Hypothesis

Since most of us primarily scroll social media on our phones, we’re usually sitting in a hunched over position to see the small screen.

This posture is identical to someone who’s really sad or discouraged… maybe even depressed.

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And if you sit like a depressed person often enough, you just might start to feel like a depressed person.

If true, this means that the depressing effects of the social media itself are compounding with your posture.

So what?

It’s easy to point fingers at big corporations for being evil, but isn’t it more useful to look in the mirror and find what we can actually do to improve?

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If you don’t want to be depressed, stop doomscrolling.

But if you can’t stop doomscrolling, at least stand up tall with your chin up and head high while you do it!

At very least, take frequent breaks to roll your head back, lifting your chin as high as you can to stretch your neck. I do this all the time and it immediately helps me feel better.

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Me: Where’d you get a stuffed baby Yoda?

Her: Grandpa wanted to make my spirit happy.

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Thanks for reading!

- Kody

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P.S. I always read and respond to your messages. Feel free to hit reply and say hi!