The next DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) clearly needs to include a handful of new addictions related to media consumption. Since I love to help[1], these are my seven suggestions[2]:
1 "Obsessive-Compulsive Media Consumption" (OCMC): Continually checking your phone to read news, excessively consuming news, sleeping with your phone beside you because you were reading news just before bed. You wake up and the first thing you do is read news. The consumption of all this news profoundly affects your mood. Obsessively concerned with news at all moments throughout the day. News consumption is undoubtedly feeding a primary addiction (E.g.: anger, depression, anxiety, self-righteousness, etc).
2a "Obsessive-Compulsive Depressive Scrolling" (OCDS): Scrolling continuously, obsessively, endlessly through news as you get more and more depressed. Every article you seem to encounter makes you feel more hopeless, more anxious, and more resigned to an endless media hellscape. And yet, ironically enough, you can't stop. This one is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as you're likely choosing both the source of your depressing news and to compulsively read said news. see @OCMC.
2b "Media-Induced Rage Addiction" (MIRA): You're continually in a state of rage due to obsessive news consumption. Ironically[3], also a self-fulfilling prophecy as the consumer likely chooses their media source, only to be perpetually enraged by the stories said source publishes. The anger, interestingly/ironically enough, actually feels good to you, so you keep feeding it, whereupon it eventually turns into an addiction. Also ironically[4] enough: the more an article has the potential to enrage you, the more you seek it out. Chances are if you suffer from MIRA, you also suffer from MISRA. see @OCMC.
2c "Media-Induced Self-Righteousness Addiction" (MISRA): Extreme self-righteousness is the mechanism via which you can't help but demonstrate your superior grasp of current events, usually involving the re-posting of condescending political memes and referring to other people as "sheeple". Only you can see the truth, the rest of us are clearly trapped in our own news consumption echo-chambers. You feel badly for the rest of us because we're so lost. Every self-aggrandizing comment makes you feel that much better/that much more superior. Your communication style is characterized by patronizing, self-congratulatory language. You're so self-righteous that it actually changes your brain chemistry. The profound irony here is that it's nearly guaranteed the news you're consuming is contrived, shaped, edited, and presented by corporate interests. @see OCMC.
2d "Media-Induced Rage Tweeting" (MIRT): Popping off regularly with rage-filled tweets as you grow more and more addicted to your own self-righteousness. You're not interested in exchanging views, reaching a common understanding, or learning something anymore: you're way past that. It's all rhetoric, all-the-time. Even if the thinking behind the tweet is impressively misguided and/or inaccurate, as long as it grabs people's attention (and allows them to feed their OCMC, MISRA, etc), it's serving it's primary purpose (for both you and them). The primary addictions here are (a) the feeling of superiority (b) anger (c) self-righteousness [superior morality/ethics] and most importantly (d) your own ego. see @OCMC, @MISRA, and @MIRA.
3 "Media-Induced Conspiracy Theory Addiction" (MICTA): You're the person who, when shown a video deposition by Ivanka Trump posits that "perhaps it's a clone and not really her. they have those now [clones][5]". Literally no amount of data will tune your mind to the simple reality of what's happening, in favor of wild, speculative, unsupported, improbable, (and/or impossible) conspiracy theories. You'll tie yourself up like a pretzel trying to balance/reconcile/ignore conflicting conspiracy theories, conveniently/deftly ignoring contrary data while [effectively] burying your head in the sand (that's a literal ostrich reference right there) as opposed to simply opening your eyes and looking at the actual truth.
4 "Addiction To Likes" (ATL): Publishing anything on social media and then obsessively refreshing the page to check to see if there are likes and that the like count is steadily growing. Getting increasingly depressed if there are no likes (and doing riskier and stupider stuff as a way to potentially get more likes) and feeling a sort of "high" when you get some likes. Making Tik Tok videos of stuff like the Tide Pod Challenge, the Kool Aid Challenge, (etc) is a sure sign you're suffering from this addiction. see @OCMC.
(Note: if 2b, 2c, or 2d irritate you, well, that's a sure sign you're suffering from one or more of those syndromes. The more irritated you are, the more likely this will be the case.)
