On Tuesday night, Democrats reclaimed control of the House and Senate, and as the predicted “blue wave” became a historic blue tsunami, the mood turned gleeful online.
“Can’t sleep because my body is re-learning what it feels like to have something good happen,” one popular post on social media read, while another commentator wrote: “Microdosing millennial optimism by hopescrolling for the first time in a decade.”
If you woke up and immediately started reliving the night with memes and Georgia Gov.-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms’ victory speech, you too might be hopescrolling: the antidote to doomscrolling that may have real psychological benefits.
Unlike doomscrolling, where people can’t stop reading about news that makes them feel worse, hopescrolling fills people with optimism.
In 2021, a study in PLOS One found that “doomscrolling” through just two minutes of depressing news about a real crisis can immediately lower someone’s mood and sense of optimism. Researchers noticed this effect when participants watched short snippets of COVID-related bad news through a Twitter feed or through YouTube reaction videos.
But when participants engaged in “kindness scrolling” and saw kind acts related to the pandemic, they didn’t experience the same negative emotional consequences. This, in turn, suggests “that not all social media exposure is detrimental for well-being,” the study stated.
What might help is that hopescrolling can teach stressed, exhausted people to notice moments of joy and feel that positive emotion longer than they might usually permit themselves to feel.
“It’s positive emotional regulation: when we’re in a state of happiness and we seek out more things that make us happy to prolong the feeling,” said Lauren Appio, a psychologist and executive coach.
“Sharing memes with people you know and responding to friends’ memes and stories is probably the most effective way to get the most benefits from hopescrolling,” she told HuffPost.
Hopescrolling can also remind you to feel wonder at the world around you. “Hopescrolling is not a magic fix, but the science of awe suggests there is some evidence base for it. The feeling of awe has been proven to have real benefits for our mood and social connections,” said Keneisha Sinclair-McBride, a licensed clinical psychologist at Boston Children’s Hospital.
When you have an awe-inspiring experience, you feel like you are part of something greater than yourself. Studies have found that this altered state of consciousness helps people feel more connected to each other.
Just don’t spend your whole day “libbing out” with memes about Tuesday’s landslide victory for progressive candidates. A majority of people under 50 say they spend too much time checking their phones, according to a 2026 Pew Research Center survey, and scrolling increases the risk of this habit.
Some research has found that scrolling through entertaining content releases dopamine, the “feel-good” hormone that supports feelings of reward, which can turn your social media scroll into a daily habit.
“Uplifting content can keep people scrolling just as negative content can, so the time spent can still crowd out other things,” said Susan Tapert, a professor in the UC San Diego Department of Psychiatry.
Psychologists are in favor of some hopescrolling, as long as you don’t get too carried away. Remember there’s a way to celebrate your civic pride beyond swapping funny jokes and liking memes on your phone.
“I say: Feel it, savor it and then get to the real work of living in a values-based way,” Sinclair-McBride said.