Earthquakes Aren't Multiplying (You're Just Doomscrolling)
From the Kamchatka mega-thrust to the viral tremors in California, the ground feels shakier than ever. But does the data back up your anxiety, or is the algorithm just shaking you up?
It started with the coffee shop chatter. Then came the barrage of TikToks showing swaying chandeliers in San Francisco and rattling shelves in Tokyo. Since the massive magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Kamchatka last July, the collective psyche has been on edge. Every morning, the question trends again: Is the world ending?
If you live on the Ring of Fire—or even if you just live on the internet—it certainly feels like the planet is convulsing more frequently. The timeline for early 2026 has been a blur of yellow and red dots on the USGS map. But here is the cold, hard, distinctively un-viral truth: the Earth is not shaking more. You are just watching it more closely.
⚡ The Essentials
- The Kamchatka Effect: The M8.8 event in mid-2025 reset our global threat perception, making every subsequent tremor feel like a precursor.
- Data Deficit: Despite the viral clips, the number of major earthquakes (M7.0+) in the last 12 months is statistically average.
- The Real Threat: It's not geological instability that is rising, but infrastructure vulnerability in exploding urban centers.
The "Vibecession" of Geology
Human brains are terrible at processing random distribution. We crave patterns. When three significant quakes hit different continents in a week, we scream "Cluster!" The geologists call it "Tuesday."
The perception gap is widening because our detection technology is too good. We now detect, categorize, and push notifications for magnitude 2.5 quakes that our ancestors would have slept through. We haven't just wired the planet; we've wired our anxiety to it. A tremor in a remote part of Chile used to be a local news footnote; today, it’s a push notification on a watch in Paris.
| Metric | Historical Average (Yearly) | Last 12 Months (2025-26) |
|---|---|---|
| Great Earthquakes (M8.0+) | 1 | 1 (Kamchatka) |
| Major Earthquakes (M7.0-7.9) | 15 | 14 |
| Viral TikToks about "The End" | ~500 | ~14,000,000 |
The Paradox of Safety
Does this mean we are safe? Absolutely not. But we are looking in the wrong direction. While we stare at the seismographs, the real instability is growing above ground. The danger isn't that the Pacific Plate is speeding up (it isn't); it's that we are stacking millions of people in concrete towers on top of soft soil basins from Tehran to Los Angeles.
The "instability" we feel is the fragility of our own systems. A magnitude 6.0 in 1950 hit a village; today, it hits a megacity and a supply chain hub. The impact is rising, even if the frequency remains flat.
👀 Is the "Big One" actually overdue in California?
Technically, yes, but geology doesn't own a calendar. The San Andreas Fault's southern section hasn't ruptured since 1690. The average interval is about 150 years. We are at ~336 years. This doesn't mean it happens tomorrow, but the stress accumulation is real. The recent swarms in the Salton Sea (Jan 2026) are reminders that the fault is locked and loaded, not that it's necessarily breaking loose today.
Don't Confuse Noise with Signal
The recent "uptick" is a trick of the light—or rather, a trick of the fiber optic cable. The planet is doing what it has done for four billion years: cooling down and shifting its weight. The Kamchatka event was a beast, yes, but it was a geological inevitability, not a sign of the apocalypse.
So, what do these earthquakes reveal about our unstable planet? They reveal that the ground is indifferent to our schedules. The instability isn't in the crust; it's in our feed.
