Doomscrolling

Where the word comes from

“Doom” plus “scrolling”: thumbing through a feed of bad news. The first documented use was a tweet in 2018. The word didn’t really take off until spring 2020, when a pandemic, lockdowns and a nonstop news cycle gave millions of people the same nightly habit (Wikipedia).

Dictionary.com named it a top trending word in August 2020, and Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary picked it as its 2020 Committee’s Choice. Merriam-Webster added “doomscroll” in September 2023 and defines it as spending an excessive amount of time online scrolling through news or other content that makes you sad, anxious or angry. “Doomsurfing” is the older-sounding cousin, with the same idea and a different verb.

Why it happens

Bad news grabs attention. Threats feel like information you need, so your brain treats one more headline as protection, even when nothing you read will change what you do tomorrow.

Then the design takes over. Infinite scroll removes the natural stopping point, and the feed pays out unpredictably: most posts are filler, then one is shocking. That’s a textbook variable reward, the same schedule that keeps people at slot machines.

Researchers have started measuring the habit. A 2022 study built a doomscrolling scale and found the habit was more common among younger people and men, and linked to fear of missing out and feeling constantly connected. A 2023 paper reporting three Turkish studies linked doomscrolling to lower life satisfaction and wellbeing, partly through psychological distress. Both are correlational. Anxious people may scroll more, scrolling may make people anxious, or both.

How to tell if it’s you

• You open an app for one thing and surface 40 minutes later, tenser than before.
• You refresh the same story waiting for an update that changes nothing about your day.
• It’s 1 a.m. and you’re reading about events you can’t influence.
• You feel worse with every swipe and keep swiping anyway.

If the last one happens most nights, it has probably turned into revenge bedtime procrastination as well.

What helps

Pick news windows. Check once or twice a day at set times, ideally not in bed. A summary or newsletter gives you the facts without a feed.

Put stopping points back. Move the worst apps off your Home Screen, log out, or use the web version. Every extra step is a moment to decide.

Add friction at the weak moment. A short pause before opening an app works better than you’d think. In one field study, a pause before opening chosen apps cut how often people opened them, and many open attempts were abandoned at the pause. (One of the authors founded the app studied.)

Let a limit do the deciding. If willpower keeps losing at 11 p.m., Bricked turns the apps you pick to brick once your daily limit is used up. Every unlock is a 5-minute peek behind a hold or a wait that grows longer each time. You can still raise the limit or delete the app. The point is friction at the moment of weakness, not a cage.

Swap, don’t just stop. Keep something for your hands and eyes next to where you usually scroll, like a book or a crossword. An empty gap is easy to fill with the feed again.