An Antidote to Doomscrolling: Flipboard Offers Users Control Over Their Newsfeed

New Personalization Capabilities Support Healthier Media Diet

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Aug 31, 2021, 08:30 ET

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Aug. 31, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, on Flipboard, users have a new way to personalize their main newsfeed, aka the For You feed. A special controller, on the cover of the For You feed, lets people select new topics and deselect topics they may no longer be interested in empowering them to make their newsfeed about much more than news. While millions come to Flipboard to catch up on breaking news and politics, a majority of users spend their time on the platform engaging with thousands of other topics including food, travel, photography, fitness and parenting. The new personalization capabilities let users be more intentional with their media consumption, which mental health experts recommend as an antidote to doomscrolling.

Flipboard's new personalization capabilities empower users to be more intentional with their media consumption, which mental health experts recommend as an antidote to doomscrolling. While millions come to Flipboard to catch up on breaking news and politics, a majority of users spend their time on the platform engaging with thousands of other topics including food, travel, photography, fitness and parenting.

The term doomscrolling refers to "the tendency to continue to surf or scroll through bad news, even though that news is saddening, disheartening, or depressing. Many people are finding themselves reading continuously bad news about COVID-19 without the ability to stop or step back," according to Merriam-Webster. Numerous studies* have found links between COVID-19 related media consumption and symptoms of anxiety and depression. With growing awareness of the impact on mental health, the ability to take control over our media diet, particularly during times of crisis, is a growing need.

"This level of content control is unique to Flipboard; just think about how hard it is to adjust your feed on any other platform," said Mike McCue, Flipboard's CEO. "A highly personalized feed empowers people to focus on the things that matter to them, without being distracted by doomscrolling, misinformation or browsing through other people's lives. We build a platform that lets people take control of their media consumption rather than letting it control them."

Today's launch addresses the number one request from our users: to have more control over the content in their For You feed. Now, users can choose to tune Flipboard around a personal interest, such as backpacking, design or spirituality and minimize the temptation to be pulled into the latest breaking news. And, as people's interests evolve over time, it is easy to update personalization preferences using the new tune icon to add or remove topics that appear in a user's For You feed. After each update to the personalization card, relevant stories from selected topics — as well as from related Magazines curated by enthusiasts — will instantly start to populate the For You feed.

Along with the recently introduced personalization of topics, people now have unprecedented control over their content experience on Flipboard. People who have personalized topics spend between nine and 12 minutes per day reading them on average.

Most Popular Topics to Personalize

Science
Sports
News
Technology
Travel
Business
Entertainment
Health
Recipes
Style
Celebrity news
Photography
Apple news
Home
Self-improvement

About Flipboard
Flipboard is an award-winning curation platform where people go to understand our time and share stories that are worth our time. On Flipboard, quality articles, videos, podcasts and products are curated every day for millions of people around the world. It is a platform that lets people spend time on their interests, develop deeper understanding of issues, and share the best ideas with others by collecting them into their own Flipboard Magazines and Storyboards. Download Flipboard for free in any app store or visit flipboard.com.

* Research into the effects of social media and news consumption on mental health