The Ancients Understood Doomscrolling

Lenore Skenazy
Thu, 26 Mar 2026 15:45:23 -0700
Opinion

Think of the Talmud as the Jewish sort of Guide to Life, an ancient text written by rabbis chewing over the thorniest issues for hundreds of years. I mention it today because it's almost as if the Talmud writers understood what would happen if we watched TV or surfed the internet.

They knew it would drive us wild with worry. From the morning shows to the Facebook feed to the local news at night, all we hear about is danger, danger, danger. Salmonella on the cutting board! Poisons in plastic! Predators on the web and perverts at the park! "Is there a killer lurking in your kitchen cabinet? Details at 11!"

(By the way, wouldn't you want to know before 11 if something in your kitchen cabinet was about to kill you?)
Updated: Thu Mar 26, 2026

Think of the Talmud as the Jewish sort of Guide to Life, an ancient text written by rabbis chewing over the thorniest issues for hundreds of years. I mention it today because it's almost as if the Talmud writers understood what would happen if we watched TV or surfed the internet.

They knew it would drive us wild with worry. From the morning shows to the Facebook feed to the local news at night, all we hear about is danger, danger, danger. Salmonella on the cutting board! Poisons in plastic! Predators on the web and perverts at the park! "Is there a killer lurking in your kitchen cabinet? Details at 11!"

(By the way, wouldn't you want to know before 11 if something in your kitchen cabinet was about to kill you?)

Anyway, here's what the Talmud had to say about all the dangers surrounding us:

"They are more numerous than us," the ancient text avers. "They stand about us like a ditch around a mound." One of the many authors of the Talmud, a guy named Rav Huna, said: "Each one of us has a thousand demons to his left and 10,000 to his right."

And while you do have to substitute the word "dangers" for "demons," here's the Talmud's clincher: "If the eye would be granted permission to see, no creature would be able to stand in the face of the demons."

In other words, if our eyes were opened to all the heaps of horrors that surround us, we'd be paralyzed with fear.

Those sages were sages for the ages!

While they were talking about actual evil forces swirling around us, the Talmud authors understood that being aware of all of them is not necessarily a blessing. In fact, it's a curse. And yet, that is exactly what is happening the second we start scrolling. The media — social and otherwise — has taken as its mission to inform us about every last little thing that could ever possibly hurt us, no matter how remote the chances.

In his book, "How Fear Works," sociologist Frank Furedi writes, "A study of 50 common ingredients, taken randomly from a cookbook, found that 40 of them were the subjects of articles, reporting on their cancer risks."

It's as if we want to be able to say "I told you so" when something goes wrong. "See — I told you not to eat/watch/lick/visit/attempt (fill in the blank). You should have listened!"

Benjamin Radford, author of "Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us" used to call this "news ooze" — the primordial goo of a typical news story.

All you need is one small, poorly designed study or tragic accident and you can walk out the door possessing the prestige of a new warning. "Too much aspirin will kill you!" or "Not enough aspirin will kill you!" Or — possibly — both!

So, here's a tip: Figure that whenever you hear some incredibly surprising warning, like "rubber bands cause dementia" (I'm making that up!) or "bananas make kids homicidal" (also made up!), it's probably wrong. As Rav Huna said — more or less — "Stop doomscrolling and chillax!"