Reaching for the smartphone in every free minute has long since become routine for many.

The risk of missing something is supposedly high: around 350,000 posts are published on Twitter every minute, and another 66,000 on Instagram, and the stream of news never stops – somewhere in the world someone is always awake, delivering a headline.

The catastrophes that rain down on everyone who opens the social networks do not change the “fear of missing out”.

Doomscrolling is when you can't stop consuming negative news to the point of having trouble sleeping and feeling anxious.

Julia Anton

Editor in the “Society & Style” department.

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Jens Spahn suddenly becomes a pioneer in terms of well-being.

As the former Federal Minister of Health revealed in the “Wochentester” podcast of the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” and Germany’s editorial network, he has deleted Twitter from his smartphone.

"It puts you in a bad mood," said the CDU member of the Bundestag, who, as an opposition politician, probably knows what he's talking about.

"If every time you get in the car, you're standing in the elevator, you have a quiet second, the first thing you look at is Twitter, it's almost a little addiction, and see what's going on now?

Unconsciously, it really puts you in a bad mood.”

And then shitstorms

Spahn can also report positive effects straight away: Since then he has felt “a better mood”.

Because Spahn is also dissatisfied with the culture of debate on the short message service, an important barometer of general political weather conditions: the topics are often too one-sidedly focused and therefore have little in common with real debates.

In addition, he had "sometimes had three shitstorms" at the same time, "because some statement or some political activity (. . .) did not please part of the Twitter bubble".

SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert made a similar statement last week – and deactivated his account with 370,000 followers.

Spahn, who is followed by at least 275,000 users, is not quite so radical.

"Happy too soon," he commented on media reports about his supposed complete Twitter withdrawal.

His deletion action only affected his smartphone, his account will continue to be looked after by his team, explained the CDU politician.

Most users should not have such a team.

Instead of looking at your smartphone in the car in the future (especially if you are sitting at the wheel) and humming along to the elevator music in the elevator instead of chirping: the idea of ​​the former health minister is perhaps not bad.

It's not just the opposition that tolerates a "better mood".