This year I have been attracted to books* about how art is an effective anti-anxiety drug. A little-known fact about me is that I went to art school last century. I’m a graduate of the College of Fine Arts, UNSW. So, with this new IG account and my new-found knowledge of psychology, I followed painters, illustrators, textile artists, designers, galleries and art studios. Within 24 hours, the shift in what the feed served me was dramatic across all my social media accounts, which are linked in the back end by the Meta mammoth.

See ya later reels of violent car accidents and people falling into their wedding cakes. In their place came soft brushstrokes in moody landscapes and behind-the-scenes studio clips showing artists mixing colour with a palette knife. I discovered a bloke named Nicholas Wilton, the gentle art teacher I never knew I needed and now I want to go on one of his retreats in Mexico or Italy. The ads in my feed changed from car vacuum cleaners and anti-ageing products to art supplies and framing. The algorithm was blooming. And so was my attention span.

Scrolling became joyful, even meditative. It felt like I had intentionally reclaimed a corner of the internet for peace and beauty. I now officially call it Bloom Scrolling. Ha!

The dark side of the feed

Before we get to the benefits of a bloom, we need to acknowledge the doom. Social media toxicity is well-documented and affects mental health across all age groups.

A 2022 study found that taking just a one-week break from social media significantly improved well-being, reduced anxiety and lifted depression symptoms in folks aged 18 to 72. The researchers concluded that even short breaks can have noticeable mental health benefits. Another study showed that social media use amplifies existing vulnerabilities by reinforcing negative content loops.

Addiction is part of the design. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok and Facebook use variable reward schedules (the same kind that make the pokies addictive) to keep users glued. The more extreme or emotionally triggering the content, the better it performs in this attention economy. Note that the founders of these platforms don’t allow their children to use them, which I think says an awful lot. 

But here’s the twist: these algorithms don’t have opinions. They respond to engagement. And that’s where your power lies.

Rewilding your feed

Just like curating your home decor to feel more like you, your digital life can be redesigned. You just need to engage intentionally.

1. Create a niche account
   Start a fresh Instagram or TikTok account with a specific focus on something you adore: French Bulldogs, architecture, crochet. Whatever makes your eyeballs widen with joy and your chest feel warm. Follow only accounts in that lane. This trains the algorithm from scratch.
2. Ruthlessly unfollow
   If your main account has become a digital dumpster fire, start cleaning. Unfollow or mute anything that doesn’t serve you well. Especially your cousin’s MLM journey. Unfriend the people you have no real connection to. I do this when I think, ‘who even is that?’
3. Train the feed
   Every like, comment, share, and even how long you pause on a reel tells the algorithm what to feed you more of. Pause on beauty, scroll past trash. Three dots on the bottom corner of an ad will give you the option of never seeing that ad ever again as long as you live and you can choose to say why. I always choose ‘irrelevant’.
4. Save what soothes
   Bookmark posts that nourish you. Platforms notice when you save content, and they’ll serve you more of it.

What happens to your brain when you Bloom scroll

The impact is more than aesthetic. Anecdotally, my own mood softens and lifts when I see a Japanese watercolour emerge from a blank page rather than a celebrity meltdown or a motorbike crash. I also find myself planning ways to make art myself and have started ordering art supplies. This mood change is not unique to me.

A 2021 paper in The Journal of Positive Psychology explored the effects of viewing creative content online. Those who engaged with artistic and creative posts reported higher levels of inspiration, calm, and even motivation to try new creative pursuits themselves. The authors noted that digital platforms can foster micro-moments of awe and wonder, emotions strongly linked to increased wellbeing.

Neuroscience backs this up. The prefrontal cortex (the seat of rational thought and empathy) lights up when we engage with beauty and artistic expression. By contrast, exposure to chaos and conflict tends to trigger the amygdala, the brain’s alarm system. That’s why we feel fried after doom scrolling or news consumption and energised after just ten minutes of watching an artist mix ultramarine and burnt sienna into a dreamy dusk sky or slow stitching into beautiful fabric.

There’s something deeply satisfying to me about watching others create art. It reconnects us with the human capacity to make, to shape and to play. In a digital world where content often feels disposable and fast, trashy and a waste of time, watching someone take time to build something meaningful is a quiet, peaceful and enriching rebellion.

My feed now features ads for artists’ residencies in the south of France, paint supplies and ‘how to turn your palette into profit’ courses. I have followed a West Australian painter named Wanda Comrie whose still life paintings on super thick plywood are so delightful I want to own one before I die. And another artist, Greta Laundy, who paints with the most serene palette of colours that I could have a little cry. I never knew I needed this, but now I can’t look away.