I first wrote about this in March 2022. We were in the midst of the war with Ukraine, we were emerging from two years of pandemic, and our feeds were full of anxiety, propaganda and competing narratives. I wrote then about emotional contagion, the battle for our attention, and a need to move from the digital town square to the living room.
Four years on, I’m writing about this again, because everything I was trying to articulate then has intensified somehow… which is unbelievable but also true.
Already in 2026, on top of what we have witnessed with Palestine in recent times, a war with Iran has begun and this is playing out in real time through our screens, alongside the millions of pages of the Epstein files that were recently released.
The sheer volume of all of this is impossible for any one person to process, so we go on social media where people are trying to interpret it all for us.
And this is where it also gets even more dangerous as AI-generated fake images spread across platforms, so that we are no longer just navigating spin and bias, but we are navigating a world where the “evidence” itself can be manufactured and manipulated, in order to get both clicks and create confusion.
I’ll keep saying this, this really is a lot for us all to process.
For some much of this information is not new, but to those for whom this is a revelation, the desire to jump in and explore is heightened even more so, which I am seeing amongst my friends.
Then throw in a viral fake, clone or not Jim Carrey and our attention and energy are being pulled in so many directions, at all times.
Our attention and our emotions through social networks are contagious.
Social media is now a battlefield of its own, and our minds, and emotions, are caught in the middle of an information war. These digital spaces we tap into several times a day be it for work, for entertainment, for connection are all part of an ongoing battle for our brains, using content designed to affect our feelings, our nervous systems and our souls.
Since I last wrote about this, new research tells us even more about how this affects us. A large-scale study looking at how people engage with news on social media found that passive consumption, silently scrolling, bookmarking headlines, doomscrolling through feeds, was associated with significantly worse emotional outcomes than actively engaging online.
Another study published in JAMA Network Open found that even a one-week break from social media improved mental health in young adults. And yet, as one researcher put it recently, the platforms are generally not designed for our wellbeing…
As we know, they are designed to keep us scrolling and clicking for as long as possible.
Have you been ever taken a week off from your daily scroll?
We stop off at the sinkhole of selfies, to drink at the fountain of information and news, receiving a regular injection of dopamine and discomfort that keeps us down as we try to self-soothe.
Despite the doom and gloom, in amongst it all there are still moments of joy, of connection, of opportunity, kindness, of hope.
This is also real.
I want to keep reminding us of that.
As I shared last week, when I wrote my second book, a digital self-care guide, I wrote it with this duality at its heart… the understanding that both the light and the dark reside in these spaces, because they are a reflection of the human condition.
In that book, I wrote a poem that feels even more relevant now than when I first wrote it in 2019… And it is something for us to consider…
‘Be your authentic self’ they say,
Amongst a sea of fake news we see every day.
The truth is in a state of decay.
With deep fakes and propaganda making headway,
And when influencers steal words, it is considered fair play.
Having it ‘on good authority,’
Doesn’t seem to take too much today.
Where ‘fake it to make it’ seems to be ‘the way.’
And buying Likes, follows and reviews — mere child’s play.
So how to stay in your truth and not stray?
Even though it may not seem to pay the same way,
I choose to be myself anyway.
Where karma may be considered by some a cliché,
It will only lead to your own judgement day.
When I wrote those words, deepfakes were still relatively niche but now they are everywhere, becoming indistinguishable from reality to most eyes, spreading faster than any fact-check can travel.
The truth really is in a state of decay, and navigating it requires something more than just critical thinking these days.
Susan Halfpenny, lecturer at the University of York, wrote in their Digital Wellbeing course:
‘The importance of information in our society presents the need for us to develop adequate skills to successfully navigate it. We need to consider not only the information we consume but also the information we share — to gain a better understanding of this complex area and the impact it has on our personal beliefs, values, and society more broadly.’
This is the work I’m now doing by helping young people (and the adults around them) develop the awareness to notice what’s happening in their bodies when they scroll.
To notice the loop.
To pause.
And to choose.
Scroll. Loop. Notice. Choose.
It sounds simple, but in a world where war footage, AI-generated conspiracy images and emotionally charged misinformation arrive in the same thumb-swipe, that moment of noticing is everything.
It requires us to develop digital information and emotional skills, not just for what we consume, but also for what we share with others online.
Digital wellbeing is more than just where we spend our time online.
It’s about how we hold ourselves…
How we manage our minds, our attention, our hearts, our emotions, when we do go online.
To have the inner steadiness to witness what’s there without being swept away by it.
To stay informed without being consumed.
To care without drowning in back to back rabbit holes.
I think that this is the real digital self-care practice for 2026.
So how are you navigating your social media news feeds right now?
How are you managing the weight of what’s coming through your screen?
The war, the revelations, the fakes, the fear…
All whilst still showing up for your life, your work and your people online.
Because that is the truth of it too.
I’d love to hear from you below.
love Kdot x