Choosing Your Lens When the World Is Loud

Why Is Everyone So Angry All the Time?

You can't go on a social media platform and miss it.

The anger. The fighting. The complaining. People hating people they've never met just because they have a different opinion. Debating strangers on social media who — let's be honest — might not even be real people. You could be in a full-blown argument with a bot right now and not know it.

And the doom scrolling. That slow, mindless pull through rage bait and headlines until outrage is the only thing you see. Until it feels like the whole world is furious, petty, and out of its mind.

What is that energy actually giving you — besides outrage and feeling doomed?

What if you redirected even a fraction of that into noticing what's actually right in front of you? It could be as simple as looking up from the screen.

That's not naïve. That's a choice.

Why I Can't Stop Doom Scrolling Even When It’s Driving me Crazy?

Many of you messaged to ask if I am okay, as I haven't posted a blog for about a month.

Well, I spent two weeks on Maui decompressing, or as the locals call it, "island time," for my son and daughter-in-law's wedding celebration. For seven days, we witnessed 100 people choosing to be their ohana — the Hawaiian word for family, not just by blood but by choice. It was heartwarming to see the love and happiness surrounding these two as they celebrated their commitment to each other.

If you believe, as I do, it was impossible not to feel my late husband’s presence nearby. A warm breeze at just the right time. A palm tree swaying like it’s about to tell a joke. That’s him, still present, still watching, still laughing. (Yes, I’m a widow — promise to talk about that in another blog post.)

Same breeze — weather or him — depending on the lens you choose.

If you've ever had a weekend like that — and then watched your phone erase it by Tuesday — you already know where this is going.

The good stuff was so present that the noise couldn't find room to sneak in. Two weeks. No outrage. No scrolling through garbage.

Then I came home. And got norovirus. It wasn't pretty.

I was in bed for days with nothing to do. So I picked up my phone. And started scrolling.

The happiness from Maui didn't fade.
I replaced it.

Within days, I was deep in a rabbit hole. The fury, the blame, the "why can't they see it?" and "why don't they do something?" — all of it flooding through a screen I couldn't put down.

Chris — patient, steady Chris — took care of me and listened to my rants and raves about the craziness in the world.

And then one morning it hit me.
He is the real thing in my life.
He kept being present until I noticed I wasn't.

WTF am I doing?

How did I get HERE from pure joy in just a few days? How did I allow other people's outrage to take over and quash my happiness? Was I even forming my own opinions?

I let angry strangers on the internet get in my head — and the algorithm made sure they stayed there.

So I started writing. Because doing something — anything — was better than sitting in the rabbit hole marinating in someone else's fury.

The world doesn't get quieter.
Life keeps interrupting.
You choose how to SEE IT.

The moment I stopped consuming and started doing, I saw what actually mattered to me.

How Do I Stop the Noise From Replacing What’s Real?

Seeing it is one thing. The world isn't suddenly better. Nobody's saying look away. Staying present with the humans around you is not easy and takes work. I had two weeks of pure bliss and erased it from my bed in days.

The algorithm isn't neutral.
It has one job:
keep you scrolling.

So what you're seeing online — it's designed to hook you, one autoplay at a time.

And once you're in that rabbit hole, it's designed like Alice in Wonderland — everything pulls you deeper. One click leads to another. One headline leads to the next. Before you know it, you've been falling for two hours, and you can't remember what you were doing before you picked up the phone.

I'm a glass-half-full person. Always have been. Yet the rabbit hole turned me into someone I didn't recognize — angry, reactive, scrolling through headlines and calling it "staying informed."

That's not staying informed.
That's staying outraged.
And outrage without action isn't conviction.
It's just a really efficient way to ruin your Tuesday.

The rabbit hole doesn't have an exit.
You have to build one.

And you build it by doing something. Not something transformational. Not something life-changing. Something that belongs to your actual life — not the algorithm's version of it.

There are only 168 hours in a week.
How many of yours are spent on your actual life — and how many are down in the rabbit hole?

Your Move?

You don’t need a plane ticket to Maui.
You don’t need to delete every app or swear off your phone.

With everything happening around us, we all have the same choice every single day. Fall into the rage bait — or pay attention to what your actions are doing to the people who matter most to you — your chosen ohana.

You need one pause. One moment where you stop reacting to the version your feed is selling, not the version outrage built, not the version that gives you someone to blame.

For me, it was writing. For you, it might be enjoying the walk with your dog, catching up with a friend who makes you laugh, or having dinner with your partner to ask about their day. It doesn’t matter what it is. What matters is that you’re doing something that doesn't involve the algorithm.

The real version. The one that is not flashy.
The one that doesn't need Wi-Fi.

Just don’t let the noise dim the light of what’s right in front of you.

P.S. Feel like you got played by an algorithm? Spent more time with strangers or bots than the person next to you? Me too. When you SEE IT, you can do something about it. I did the homework. The Research Behind... "Doomscrolling: Why You Got Sucked In — and One Move to Get Out" drops Monday at 10 AM.

P.P.S. For women in the Unscripted Middle — between who they were, who they are today, and who they’ll be — if a friend sent this to you and you thought “that’s me,” pull up a chair every Sunday by subscribing.