We’ve Lost Discernment

Here's how to get it back

Last year I got stuck in a terrible habit. I’d lie in bed scrolling news for hours, sometimes consuming the same story from different angles, again and again. By midnight I’d be wide awake, my heart racing… too wired to sleep. This would trigger my insomnia, which meant the next day’s free time went to catching up on rest instead of anything else.

I told myself I was staying informed. And I was. But I wasn’t doing anything with the information — I was just absorbing it, over and over. When my daughter’s school asked for volunteers, I was too tired. When a neighborhood association meeting came up, I couldn’t make myself go. I’d spent so much energy reading and watching that I had none left for doing. I was an expert on problems I couldn’t solve but absent from the ones I could.

I don’t think I’m alone in this. And I don’t think the answer is to log off and protect your peace — I think it’s to figure out why we’re so depleted and start showing up differently.

You would think spending less time on social media would help. But in the last two years we have. So why does it feel worse than ever?

Part of the answer is obvious: the world is genuinely heavy right now. Social media used to be an escape, but now it’s where most people get their news, and the news is not especially encouraging.

But it’s not just what you’re seeing that’s so hard… it’s how it’s delivered. When you read a newspaper or listen to a podcast, you have time to process it. On social media, you emotionally parkour between an influencer’s morning routine, footage from a war zone, and someone ranking fast food chicken nuggets, all in less than 30 seconds, with no moment to recover before the next thing arrives.

When your brain is flooded with more than it can process, its ability to filter starts to break down: the prefrontal cortex (which is responsible for decision-making and impulse control) gets overwhelmed and the amygdala (your brain’s alarm system) takes over. Your anxiety spikes and your attention scatters.

You can’t tell the difference between real threats and irrational panic, especially when everything is presented as urgent. (You’ve been storing your spices wrong and it’s making you sick!) You become so overwhelmed, you’re actually less likely to take action on things that matter to you. Researchers call this “infoxication.”

And what goes first is discernment: the ability to tell the difference between what actually requires your attention and what is simply designed to keep you engaged.

We act like it’s possible to stay on top of everything, feel everything, and still have enough left over to function, but your brain doesn’t work that way. You may not be living through what’s happening, but vicarious trauma is real. When we are exposed to suffering and tragedy through images, videos, and stories, our nervous systems respond.

But scrolling is only part of what depletes us. We also exhaust ourselves with the way we engage — reacting immediately to anything that doesn’t align with our views, assuming bad intent when someone posts something we don’t relate to, pouring energy into comment sections arguing with strangers who are never going to change their minds (research shows that arguing only makes people dig in more). All the while, we are training algorithms to show us more of what made us angry in the first place.

We tell ourselves it’s because we care (you wouldn’t be doom-scrolling if you didn’t). But I think there’s something else too.

Scrolling is easier than sitting with your own life. It’s easier to yell at a stranger online than to talk to your neighbor who voted differently. Arguing in the comments feels like action, but it can also be a way to avoid the harder work — like listening to someone and trying to help them see your perspective. Sometimes it’s easier to worry about the state of the world than to make the doctor’s appointment you’ve been avoiding for six months.

So how do you rebuild discernment?

Start by asking the right questions. Before scrolling, ask yourself: Does this help me take action? Am I looking for information, or am I avoiding something?

And before you comment or share: Is this helpful? Does it need to be said by me, right now? Have I actually verified what I’m about to share? (Take ten seconds to search and see what others say about the source or information.)

None of this will make the news less terrible. But you can’t show up for the people in front of you if you have nothing left to give. So let’s stop being experts on problems we can’t solve and start showing up for the ones we can.