Why does everything in the world affect me so much?
Doomscrolling, ADHD, and Justice Sensitivity
It’s 1 am. You need to go to bed. You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow. You hate the feeling of trying to power through your day exhausted, and your eyes are heavy. Your body is screaming at you to sleep. And yet, here you are- sitting on your couch, phone in hand, doom scrolling with the intensity of Michael Phelps, 5 minutes before a race. With each successive headline, your mood gets darker, and that little ball of rage and hopelessness grows inside.
What’s going on? Why is it so hard to stop, and why does it take such a toll?
We know that revenge bedtime procrastination, temporal discounting, and your brain’s dopamine hunger keep you stuck on the couch. (No? Does that sound like a bunch of psych mambo jumbo? Check out this post here.)
But why is doomscrolling so compelling, and why does it take such a toll?
Why are ADHD brains so likely doomscroll?
The Hungry Brain
The ADHD brain is, at its base, dopamine, and norepinephrine hungry. And when our brains are hungry, they will look for something, anything, to feed its need. Doomscrolling is a particularly compelling way of getting that need filled- not only does the scrolling on the phone provide a steady (though small) trickle of dopamine and novelty. But when the scrolling leads you through an endless maze of doom, destruction, and injustice? Well, that’s going to get that fight/flight/freeze part of your brain handing out some norepinephrine, too. So basically, doomscrolling is the perfect cocktail for your brain.
But just like if you hand out tiny little bits of a treat to a hungry dog, you can make them follow you anywhere, but if you gave him an entire bowl of food, the dog would ignore you entirely while it scarfed down its meal. Doomscrolling hands your brain tiny little bits of the perfect cocktail— just enough to keep it going but not nearly enough to satisfy it- causing your fingers to keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling.
Why does doomscrolling take such a toll on me?
The ADHD brain’s inclination to doomscroll is hard enough given its tendency to suck up time. But the thing that adds a flair of insult to that injury is that all the doom, gloom, and suffering hurts the ADHD brain so much more than other brains.
Why? Well, it’s a little-known but well-established component of the ADHD brain: Justice Sensitivity.
What is Justice Sensitivity?
Justice sensitivity is the tendency to notice and identify wrong-doing and injustice and have intense cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions to that injustice. People who are justice sensitive tend to notice injustice more often than others, they tend to ruminate longer and more intensely on that injustice, and they feel a stronger need to restore justice.
Justice Sensitivity and the ADHD brain
Numerous research studies have found that ADHD brains (particularly inattentive subtype)- both child and adult- are significantly more justice sensitive than neurotypical brains. Why? Well, there are a variety of neurological, developmental, and social components of the ADHD experience that make it more sensitive to the pain of the world:
Intuitive/ Sensitive Processing:
The ADHD brain is both hypersensitive and intuitive. This means that it feels the world's pain with an intensity that others may not. It also means that it may pick up on pain and suffering that other brains gloss over.
Filterless Brain
The ADHD brain is also filterless- meaning that it doesn’t screen out details and information that are not salient to its goals. This is part of what makes it more intuitive than neurotypical brains- because it’s making decisions based on much more, often very subtle, data than a neurotypical brain. But it also means that it will see more and can’t disregard even subtle suffering.
Neurocognitive Delay
Some researchers also posit that the neurocognitive delay that can create a developmental lag in ADHD kids compared to their peers can cause kids to overgeneralize and be inflexible with social rules. Because kids with ADHD may be as many as 2-3 years behind their peers in terms of their brain’s developmental capacity- it’s often hard for them to understand social interaction's subtle and complex rules. And so, as they start to grasp one rule- they may overgeneralize it and not grasp the subtle intricacies that make that rule apply in some situations but not others.
This social rule inflexibility, combined with the ADHD brain’s tendency to be more comfortable in extremes, makes the ADHD brain more likely to see black/white injustice where other brains may see a more variable shade of grey.
History of Personal Injustice
Growing up in a world not made for your brain creates many repeated injustices that create a particular sensitivity. This sensitivity is similar to what your shin would feel like if it had been kicked repeatedly. Every time you’re— misunderstood, or made to follow rules that make no sense and drain your system of all motivation, or singled out for talking too loudly, or the one of a group of rule-breakers that is punished– it kicks that area of injustice which makes it that much more sensitive to any other injustice it encounters.
Why does my Justice Sensitivity drain me?
Anyone who’s ever taken a tumble down the doomscrolling rabbit hole can tell you how draining it can be and how thoroughly it can darken your mood. But the draining nature of doomscrolling and justice sensitivity, in general, is magnified for ADHD brains because of the unique ways in which the ADHD brain operates.
Compassion Fatigue
Because the ADHD brain is more sensitive, more intuitive, and less filtered than neurotypical brains, it feels the hurt and pain of the world more often and more intensely. This pain creates an empathic neurological and physiological response that reflects the pain seen in the world. And our brains don’t process this pain differently than they would our own pain- meaning that the same neurological and emotional processes happen in your brain as you empathize with others suffering as it would if you were suffering, yourself.
And suffering is draining. It’s distracting, takes energy and effort, and drains your resources.
That’s hard enough when it's a rare event- like feeling bad about the severe illness in a close family friend. But when your brain’s compassion switch is flipped on 24/7, and your antennae are up all the time, seeing all the pain throughout your world can become an almost constant siphoning off of energy.
Rumination
But it’s not just that the ADHD brain sees more pain or feels that pain more intensely that drains its system. It’s also that an ADHD brain is more prone to rumination. Because the ADHD brain’s Default Mode Network (the network in your brain responsible for rumination and non-task-directed thought) doesn’t turn off when its counterpart, the Task Positive Network, turns on; the ADHD brain spends more time ruminating. And so that compassion drain lasts even longer.
It doesn’t have to be all bad
The ADHD brain’s justice sensitivity can create enormous pain, overwhelm, and exhaustion. But like so many of the unique qualities of the ADHD brain, it can also be turned into its greatest strength through understanding, external support, and a shift in focus. (check out for a step-by-step process on how to do just that).
Do you feel a lot of justice sensitivity? How does it impact you and your life?
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Resources:
Bondü R, Esser G. Justice and rejection sensitivity in children and adolescents with ADHD symptoms. (2015) Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry::185-98. doi: 10.1007/s00787-014-0560-9. Epub 2014 May 31. PMID: 24878677.
Bondü, R., & Elsner, B. (2015). Justice sensitivity in childhood and adolescence. Social Development, 24(2), 420-441.
Baumert, A., & Schmitt, M. (2016). Justice sensitivity. Handbook of social justice theory and research, 161-180.
Gollwitzer M, Rothmund T, Alt B, Jekel M.(2012) Victim sensitivity and the accuracy of social judgments. Pers Soc Psychol Bull :975-84. doi: 10.1177/0146167212440887.
Huseman RC, Hatfield JD, Miles EW (1987) A new perspective on equity theory: the equity sensitivity construct. Acad Manag Rev 12:222–234. doi:10.5465/AMR.1987.4307799
Schäfer T, Kraneburg T. (2015). The Kind Nature Behind the Unsocial Semblance: ADHD and Justice Sensitivity-A Pilot Study. J Atten Disord. 8:715-27. doi: 10.1177/1087054712466914. Epub 2012 Dec 5. PMID: 23223013.
Schmitt M, Baumert A, Gollwitzer M, Maes J (2010) The justice sensitivity inventory: factorial validity, location in the personality facet space, demographic pattern, and normative data. Soc Justice Res 23:211–238. doi:10.1007/s11211-010-0115-2
Zhen S, Yu R. (2016) Tend to Compare and Tend to Be Fair: The Relationship between Social Comparison Sensitivity and Justice Sensitivity. PLoS One: 11(5):e0155414. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0155414. PMID: 27214372; PMCID: PMC4877011.
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