Three Reasons Hopescrolling is Making People Happy Again
And one (inescapable) consequence that may be good for the soul
There’s a new thing happening on my social media platform.
My timeline is blowing up with happy emojis: smiley faces, hearts, clapping hands, and teary faces of ebullient joy. It’s a little like walking into a Taylor Swift meet and greet (I imagine).
And the comments, usually a mix of nice and ruthlessly mean, have become civil. Like downright, authentically nice. The kind of nice our mothers taught us to be when they said: “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”
I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen and used the words “happy,” “ecstatic,” “relieved,” “excited.” It’s as if the lunchroom monitor arrived and threw a group of out-of-control tweens that look that says, your next stop is the principal’s office. A new, unspoken but vehemently observed rule has entered the social sphere. It says: behave or you’re out.
The result of this cleaned up, friendly, take-care-of-your-words attitude has led to an unexpectedly addictive behavior: hopescrolling.
I confess: I didn’t coin the word but, somehow, I became the person who said the quiet part out loud. One day I posted a 25-word question asking if anyone, besides me, was spending a ridiculous amount of time hopescrolling. The post, as of three days later, had more than 4,000 views and 150 comments in the affirmative.
So, now it’s a thing, and people understand the meaning. Four thousand views meant that I had tapped into a rising pulse that was being felt on a large scale. As a writer, there’s nothing more invigorating than to know that your words are seen.
Then someone posted the question: What is hopescrolling?
I had to think about that. How could I define an experience in the midst of it actually unfolding?
I answered from my own experience: Hopescrolling is when you lose all track of time scrolling through positive, uplifting comments because of the joy it gives you.
It turns out, the Urban Dictionary agrees. We hopescroll for content that uplifts us.
People are feeling hopeful again after a period of dark, doom-speaking in politics, the Covid epidemic, and the erosion of civility in our virtual public spaces. Yes, an optimistic turn of events for the election triggered this current phenomenon of hopescrolling, but the reasons it’s impacting our well-being may not be obvious.
Why are we feeling happy again?
Here are three key reasons that I discovered simply by observing my feed: kindness, empathy, and joy.
Reason #1: Kindness. For quite a long time, simple kindness had disappeared from human interaction and especially online discourse. Anonymity made cruelty acceptable. Rage posting became as common as road rage and just as lethal. Infected by bots and trolls, our social town squares morphed into launching pads for vitriol.
My response to the shift in language was avoidance. I dropped out of discussions that invited threats and abuse. Sat on the sidelines and kept my opinions to myself. I felt bullied out of having thoughtful, courteous conversations which only raised my blood pressure and increased my feelings of despair. Social media simply seemed to bring out the worst in people. Kindness no longer mattered; only views.
When I began to glimpse kindness on social posts, I was suspicious. I waited for the snarky remarks, but they never came. When one poster shared the frustration of clearing out a parent’s home after being moved into long term care, hundreds nodded and said, “Me, too.” I cautiously raised my hand. “I understand. I’m in that place now.” Instead of judgy retorts, the LGBTQ kid who had just come out to his parents got a thousand thumbs up. When “childless cat ladies” became a political target, feline moms, dads, and even dog lovers came out in defense.
These little expressions of kindness seemed to act like warm hugs for people who have felt worn down, heartsick, and deflated. Real pain came to the surface and was being acknowledged. Strangers were reaching out with encouraging words — virtual bowls of chicken soup. We respond because human beings thrive on care and care-taking. Kindness is care in action.
Reason 2: Empathy. The Covid pandemic revealed a lot about our ability, and inability, as a country to empathize with others and their suffering. We blamed other countries; became numb to seeing refrigerator trucks being used as temporary morgues. The mask-resistant boldly exerted their freedom, not caring about those they infected.
Surprising, then, that a social media platform is restoring empathy and is one of the reasons we’re hopescrolling our hearts out.
The most vivid example of this was the targeting of Algerian boxer, Imane Khelif who was mistakenly identified as transgender in the mass media. I expected the trans-phobic comments to mount but what I witnessed, instead, was support. Encouragement. As more people began to share their personal stories that demystified the question of biological gender, the firestorm shifted to understanding and almost fierce defense. Imane went on to win gold at the Olympics, and the world got a taste of the emotional wreckage that pre-judgement inflicts on the innocent.
Empathy doesn’t come easily. Self-preservation is our default mode. But there are plenty of experts who tell us that when we witness empathy in action, express empathy, or are the recipients of empathy, it triggers our feel-good brain chemistry. Empathy simply makes us happy.
Reason #3: Joy. If there’s one common denominator that’s driving hopescrolling, it’s joy. The voices that are expressing it are as diverse as America, itself. Boomers down to Gen Z; metro dwellers to farmers in the heartland. Veterans and techies. Swifties and Springsteen fans. Even the guys who tend to reserve their joy for the football season are hopping on the joy train.
What is evoking their joy? Optimism about the future. Smiling faces. Laughter. All the conventional expressions of positivity, yes, but something more.
There is joy in unity. Joy in a shared vision. Joy in cooperation; in restoring community and the appreciation for another person’s views without taking offense. And if an offending person shows up, the community says, “Not in our neighborhood!” with immediate blocks.
Hopescrolling is therapy. It helps us recover a sense of trust in humanity. That there is such a thing as decency in the world. It restores our well-being with dopamine shots and we can’t get enough.
Which leads to the one, inescapable, consequence of hopescrolling: You WILL become addicted to kindness. To the outreach of empathy. To the flaming dumpster videos and satirical memes. You’ll punch the heart so many times your finger will lose all feeling. And you’ll tell complete strangers you haven’t felt so much hope in a really long time.
Is this a bad thing? If the family is waiting for dinner, if the laundry is sitting in a pile, if you’re spending more time on your mobile device than your work computer and getting nothing done — probably. But, then again, the mundane and the practical can wait. Now is the time for joy.
Elle Harrigan is a contributing writer for the Religious Naturalist Association and hosts the Instagram community @livingwildwisdom focusing on mindfulness, creativity, and spirituality through encounters with nature. A Certified Intuition Practitioner (CIP), she is currently working on a personal growth book that focuses on the power of nature to unleash our inner wisdom for wholeness and well-being.
