Frazzled Doomscrolling is Out. Fish Doorbells and Finding Daisies are In.

Doomscrolling is a tempting habit. Opening social media often releases an overwhelming flood of negative news, and it sometimes feels like the line between staying informed and burning out is blurred. The internet is a powerful tool for education, but cycling through a loop of anxiety and anger about what can’t be changed by one person is a one-way ticket to feeling utterly helpless. There is, however, a much better use of time online: digital citizen science! In citizen science, researchers collaborate with ordinary people to advance scientific knowledge and complete a wide variety of projects (Citizen Science, 2024). Anyone can contribute to causes they’re passionate about by helping collect and analyze data, and participating educates volunteers about issues they can directly improve. Many of these projects focus on boosting sustainability and addressing human changes to the natural world, and their digital nature means that people can help out anytime, anywhere.

A great example of digital citizen science is the “Fish Doorbell”, an interactive livestream where thousands of viewers at a time can gather to keep an eye out for fish (Williams, 2024). The fish they see swimming past are travelers of the tree-lined canals of Utrecht, a small city in the Netherlands. These canals are free-flowing to allow boat passage throughout the summer but often closed during the chillier, less-traveled spring (Williams, 2024). During this time, the Weerdsluis boat lock, located on the inner city’s west side, restricts human and aquatic animal transit alike, since many species of fish make an annual journey through these waterways in search of areas to spawn upstream. Individuals arriving at the wrong time could wait for weeks for the lock gate to open, exposing them to increased predation from birds and reducing chances to produce their next generation. Aboveground observers like gate operators also have trouble recognizing when there are fish present due to the murky water, so they can’t deal with this problem on their own.

This inspired local ecologists Anne Nijs and Mark van Heukelum to create “de Visdeurbel” (the Fish Doorbell), installing an underwater camera system that livestreams views of the lock gate to spectators around the world (Holtermann, 2024). When several fish cluster near the camera, viewers push a virtual button to alert the operator, who manually opens the 200-year old gate over the course of 30 minutes (Williams, 2024). Since its inception in 2020, over 2.7 million people have tuned in to spot species like perch, freshwater bream, walleye, and even eel (Nijs & van Heukelum, n.d.). The presence of eels particularly surprised Nijs and van Heukelum: in their migration to the Sargasso Sea, their only breeding ground, eels are known to swim over 3,100 miles (Tucker, 2025)! This knowledge is just one instance of how, in addition to directly aiding fish survival, this project provides valuable information about regional ecology and who swims through these canals.

The Fish Doorbell went viral in Spring 2024, sparking more conversations about how human-built infrastructure can adapt to the needs of local ecosystems. Viewers shared through social media that the best times to log on and see active fish were near sunrise and sunset in the Netherlands (Central European Time), but the ease and spontaneity of checking whenever they had spare time was nevertheless a fantastic way to make a difference (Holtermann, 2024). The livestream will come back online on March 3, 2025, once again allowing people from across the globe to ring the doorbell for their friends with fins (Nijs & van Heukelum, n.d.).

Another way ordinary people can support virtual citizen science is by visiting Zooniverse, a web portal that hosts over 70 active projects (Projects, n.d.). Here, volunteers can contribute to many kinds of research, including environmentally-focused projects in ecology, biology, and climate science. Other disciplines with featured projects are astronomy, the humanities, physics, and medicine. The researchers and institutions involved welcome participation from anyone interested in their cause, not just other experts or computer algorithms. These projects’ tasks rely on human’s natural ability to notice patterns, and every step is reviewed by multiple people, so there’s no pressure to get everything exactly right (FAQ, n.d.). This makes Zooniverse a wonderful way to get involved and learn something new—whether by reading 19th-century ship weather logbooks, spotting distant galaxies, or listening for frogs, anyone can make a difference from wherever they are.

One local project is the California Academy of Sciences’ Plants to Pixels initiative, where volunteers help digitize and transcribe the Academy’s extensive botany collection (Notes from Nature, 2025). This archive, estimated to hold 1 million California plants from as early as 1853, is an invaluable source of information that helps scientists understand what plants lived where throughout California’s natural history. Tracking plant biodiversity over time and space forms a better understanding of the state’s native plant taxa, which include over 6,500 species and subspecies; more than 40% of those species are also endemic, which means they are found nowhere else in the world. One third of these endemic species are currently threatened by forces like invasive species, changes in how humans use the land, and climate change, and historical data is a key resource to better grasp how they may be affected by these changes in the future.

The Plants to Pixels project aims to make such “baseline” data (used for reference) more accessible (Notes from Nature, 2025). Digitizing these records is a crucial link between the collection of physical specimens and the worldwide scientific community that needs them for research; until recently, scientists had to either physically visit the Academy or have the specimens shipped to them, avenues which can both be expensive, tedious, or risky. Fully digitizing specimens removes these barriers to access, making it easier for researchers to paint a picture of plants’ past and prepare for their uncertain future. Help is appreciated at any time, and volunteers who help before February 28 will be eligible to win a botany poster (The Plants to Pixels Project, 2020)!

These are just a couple of the countless citizen science projects found online, and new ones are being launched all the time. Giving them even a few minutes of time or attention is a step in the right direction, especially if that time would have otherwise been used mindlessly scrolling. Doing nothing but consuming bad news helps no one; taking action with others working for positive change helps everyone.

 

Works Cited

Citizen Science. (2024, September 24). National Geographic; National Geographic Society. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/citizen-science-article/

FAQ. (n.d.). Zooniverse. https://www.zooniverse.org/about/faq

Holtermann, C. (2024, March 28). Tired of Doomscrolling? Try Ringing a Doorbell for Fish. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/28/style/fish-doorbell-visdeurbel-netherlands.html

Nijs, A., & van Heukelum, M. (n.d.). The fish doorbell. Visdeurbel. https://visdeurbel.nl/en/the-fish-doorbell/

Notes from Nature – CAS Plants to Pixels. (2025). Zooniverse. https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/md68135/notes-from-nature-cas-plants-to-pixels

The Plants to Pixels Project. (2020). California Academy of Sciences. https://www.calacademy.org/scientists/botany/the-plants-to-pixels-project

Projects. (n.d.). Zooniverse. https://www.zooniverse.org/projects

Research | Notes from Nature – CAS Plants to Pixels. (n.d.). Zooniverse. https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/md68135/notes-from-nature-cas-plants-to-pixels/about/research

Tucker, J. (2025, February 10). Save Fish From Your Couch: The Viral “Fish Doorbell” Starts Soon This Spring. TheTravel. https://www.thetravel.com/save-fish-from-couch-viral-fish-doorbell-starts-this-spring/

Williams, R. (2024, April 10). To Help Fish Migrate through a Dutch Canal, Ring the Dam Doorbell! Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ring-this-fish-doorbell-to-help-migrating-animals-get-through-a-dutch-canal/