For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

 

“Liturgies—whether ‘sacred’ or ‘secular’—shape and constitute our identities by forming our most fundamental desires and our most basic attunement to the world. (James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom)

Calvin University philosopher James K. A. Smith, in the tradition of Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich, defines liturgy as “rituals of ultimate concern” in the first book of his Kingdom trilogy. As witnessed by the quote above, Smith’s constitution of a liturgy demonstrates more imagination than traditional ecclesial preconceptions can fulfill. Secular or sacred, purposeful or accidental, rituals “are formative for identity, … inculcate particular visions of the good life, and do so in a way that means to trump other ritual formations.” In essence, cultural liturgies are what we long to fill some existential hole inside of us.

The 2020 Oxford English Dictionary awarded one of its words of the year to a relatively new entry into our modern vocabularies: “doomscrolling.” I’m not sure it needs defined—it’s something familiar to all digital natives, especially in a post-2020 digital ecosystem—but a 2020 Wired article perfectly captures the dreaded ritualism of the habit: “It’s 11:37 PM and the pattern shows no signs of shifting. At 1:12 am, it’s more of the same. Thumb down, thumb up. Twitter, Instagram, and—if you’re feeling particularly wrought/masochistic—Facebook.” 

For myself, it’s Twitter. Despite the fact that less than a quarter of Americans use Twitter, to long-time users in the academia, pseudo-academia, and media circles that I float between it can feel as if ninety percent of “the discourse,” whatever that actually means, happens on the bird app. And everyone hates it. One of the longest-running joke tropes on the app is how awful, consuming, and cannibalistic the Twitter experience is. (If you don’t believe me, enter the phrase “bird app” on Twitter’s search bar.) 

Doomscrolling as an action is inseparable from the feeling of pittedness that follows—pitted because the experience offers nothing; the ritual comes with no reward. The hole we are seeking to fill somewhere within starts to resemble a grave when fattened with the information offered by Twitter and the practices of doomscrolling. While many associate doomscrolling with purely negative news, its exploratory nature on the endless thing that is the internet also entails encounters with information of all sorts, positive and negative, helpful and pointless alike. 

Twitter in particular cultivates an environment discouraging to authentic human flourishing. Users can hide behind anons or even be literal bots without a human behind the account. The landscape is cruel and fast-moving, almost predatory at times. The infamous example of movie director James Gunn being dog-piled for objectively terribly though decade-old tweets that he had already publicly repented for comes to mind, as does the Teen Vogue Alexi McCammond incident. I don’t want to debate the validity of “cancel culture” or anything like that. That’s not my point. But Twitter is a cruel place where blatant vengeance rather than restoration is the norm for public sins—and these examples help demonstrate that. Doomscrolling adds to this fire by bypassing the interaction aspect of the app—it’s more stress-skimming, less commenting and responding. To use Martin Buber’s famous binary of human/object vs human/human relationships, Twitter normalizes “I and it” rather than “I and thou” relationships.

Beyond the cruelty of these online spaces, doomscrolling is simply pointless. That’s the addictive part. It’s an empty liturgy. As I write this, “#Caturday” and “Daily Quordle 89” are both in the top ten trending topics on the bird app. Who remembers the Giant Baby, Bean Dad, or “Kim Yo Jong, Lesbian Queen”? Even though Twitter’s pointlessness does not evade those perpetually online, maybe we need to remember Jesus’ warning of casting pearls before swine in the Gospel of Matthew. 

Yes, there’s a “time for everything.” But while “time” is an uncountable noun in English, based on my utterly amateur understanding of Hebrew, the word “et” that is used in Ecclesiastes 3:1 is more restrained and is often translated as “appointed time.” The ritual of doomscrolling does not heed this constraint. It engorges beyond its welcome. 

Using Smith’s broadened notion of liturgy, we can understand doomscrolling as a liturgical act. And if cultural liturgies are “formative for identity,” doomscrolling on Twitter (and I assume other sites) can only be considered pointless as best and a catechesis of vice at worst. It fosters negativity, even for those without previous mental health issues. The Cleveland Clinic warns, “Doomscrolling can reinforce negative thoughts and a negative mindset, something that can greatly impact your mental health. Consuming negative news has been linked in research with greater fear, stress, anxiety and sadness.” 

In the twelfth century, St. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote a polemic now referred to as his “Apology” against a rival monastic order, the Cluniacs. In the most famous section of the polemic, he attacks the (literal) architecture of their liturgy, vis-a-vis the decorations of buildings with monsters: “What is the point of this ridiculous monstrosity, this shapely misshapenness, this misshapen shapeliness? What is the point of those unclean apes, fierce lions, monstrous centaurs, half-men, striped tigers, fighting soldiers and hunters blowing their horns?” He concludes, “If we aren’t embarrassed by the silliness of it all, shouldn’t we at least be disgusted by the expense?” Like Bernard’s impression of the Cluniacs, we too are pointlessly distracted and deprived of more important liturgies.

Joshua Polanski

Joshua Polanski (’20) is a freelance film and culture writer who writes regularly for the Boston Hassle and has contributed to the Bay Area Reporter, In Review Online, and Off Screen amongst other places. His interests include the technical elements of filmmaking and exhibition, slow and digital cinemas, cinematic sexuality, as well as Eastern and Northern European, East Asian, and Middle Eastern film.