Why Doesn’t Searching the Internet Make Me Feel Better?
The internet is an amazing technological advancement. The amount of information we now have instantly at our fingertips has helped us to increase our knowledge, skills, and communication to an extraordinary level. We can teach ourselves how to fix a sink by watching a video, search our next big vacation destination, and learn about people’s experiences from all over the world.
The internet has also become the place we go to for answers when we are in doubt. For example…
When is the next financial downturn?
How often do people lie?
What do healthy relationships look like?
What causes stomach pain?
Can you get cancer from a sunburn?
What makes people go crazy?
Go back in your search history to see what types of questions you look up on the internet.
For an individual who wants to be informed, the internet has endless articles, research papers, blogs, quizzes, testimonials, and online forums. You could literally spend months researching one topic. But that is exactly the problem for individuals with anxiety. Searching the internet becomes an endless pursuit.
Our intention is to find information to ultimately have an answer, reduce our doubt, and feel better. We feel overwhelmed and believe we must get answers, as soon as possible, in order to feel okay. So we search. Sometimes we find some relief, but most of the time it is very short-lived or we get nothing at all. The act of searching feels productive in the moment, but really only ends in more confusion and frustration. It’s never enough and there are several reasons why.
What are we asking?
Look at the questions above. These are very general questions. When we are anxious we are actually seeking more particular information than this, specifically related to what is going to happen to us personally. If we searched our actual questions (listed below respectively), how likely do we think it is that the internet will be able to answer them?
Am I going to lose all my money?
Am I a bad person?
Do I still love my spouse?
When will I die?
Do I have cancer?
Am I going to go crazy?
When we phrase questions in this way, it becomes clearer that the questions we are asking will be difficult to answer.
Who are we asking?
There is a lot of factual and credible information on the internet. But there is also complete nonsense and anecdotal material. Anyone can write anything, literally. Searching will always come up with results, but the results might not be accurate, up-to-date, or valuable. The more we search, the more results we get. But does more information from more sources actually get us to an answer? Not necessarily. If anything it just gets more confusing and the doubt continues: Are these people right? How do I know if this correct or not? Why are people saying different things?
What are we expecting?
Because our anxious brains do not likely uncertainty, the obvious fix would be to get certainty. The problem is, our anxious brain struggles with the fact that that is not always possible. When we search these questions on the internet, we are expecting to find a sure, complete answer. And when we don’t find it, we keep searching. We also expect that finding a positive answer will make us feel better. But we forget that doubt will always be there. For example, if someone talks about it being normal to tell white lies in their blog, this might be the answer we were hoping to hear, but seconds later the doubt can creep back in. Because ultimately we can always doubt the information we are finding.
A New Plan
Since the action being taken in the short-term to feel better, ultimately fails, the alternative is to actually do the opposite. First, we need to have insight into this cycle to not get caught up in it without realizing. We also need to catch when we give ourselves permission to do things (just this once), even though we know it won’t help (it is never just once). Rather than seeking answers, we need to acknowledge what can’t be answered, and doesn’t need to be answered. This is the practice of sitting with uncertainty.
It might be helpful to physically move away from the computer or phone; while focusing on the questions you can answer (like what do I want for lunch?). It is not practical to expect that you will never use the internet, because again there are so many good things you can get from it. We just have to be aware of what we are using it for: Am I trying to get certainty? Am I trying to feel better, now? At first, you might even set an alarm when you are using the internet, to check in that you are doing appropriate searching and not certainty searching. You can also set time limits to try to wean yourself off of searching in small steps.
Although it seems strange to not pursue answers, remember, the act of tolerating uncertainty leads to less anxiety in the long-term. Uncertainty is everywhere; it is a part of everyone’s life. So as hard as it is to live in uncertain world, we have to accept our inability to change it. And one step in that right direction is to recognize our desire to search and replace it with a desire to be more flexible.
“There is nothing certain, but the uncertain.”
-Proverb
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