Doomscrolling Explained
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A calm guide to an anxious habit

Doomscrolling, explained with the research

By Influish Editorial Team · Published

In short

Doomscrolling is continuing to scroll through bad or upsetting news and posts even when it makes you feel worse. The word took off in 2020, when Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary named it a Word of the Year. Research links it with distress, but most studies show association, not cause, and practical changes to your phone and routine can make stopping easier.

The scroll and reward loopA four-step cycle. A cue such as boredom, a notification or worry leads to a scroll. The scroll delivers an unpredictable reward that is sometimes funny, sometimes useful and sometimes alarming. The uncertainty makes you check again, which returns you to the cue. In the centre, an infinite feed means there is no natural stopping point.1. Cueboredom, a notification,or a worry2. Scrollone swipe, zero effort,next item already loaded3. Unpredictable rewardfunny, useful, or alarming —you can't know in advance4. Check againthe next post mightresolve the feelingInfinite feedno page end,no natural stop
The loop in one picture. A cue leads to a scroll, the scroll gives an unpredictable result, and the uncertainty invites another check. An infinite feed removes the natural place to stop. Original diagram; explained in the science of endless scrolling.

Where would you like to begin?

Each guide answers one question in plain language and links every claim to its source. Read them in order, or jump to what you need.

What exactly counts as doomscrolling?

Most people scroll every day without it being a problem. Doomscrolling describes a particular version of the habit: the content is mostly negative (crises, disasters, outrage, grim predictions), you keep going past the point where you are learning anything new, and you come away feeling more anxious or drained than when you started. The Macquarie Dictionary’s definition captures it well: continuing to read news feeds even though the news is predominantly negative and often upsetting (Macquarie Dictionary, 2020).

That makes doomscrolling less about the number of minutes and more about the pattern. Ten minutes of catching up on a cricket score is not doomscrolling. An hour of refreshing updates about a frightening event you can do nothing about, long after you’ve understood the basic facts, probably is. Our full guide to the meaning and origin of doomscrolling covers the history of the word and its gentler cousin, bloomscrolling.

Why is it so hard to stop?

Three forces stack up. First, feeds deliver rewards unpredictably: the next post might be hilarious, useful or alarming, and that uncertainty is itself compelling. Second, the feed never ends, so there is no last page to tell you that you are done. A field study of infinite scrolling found that most people left a session because something in their surroundings interrupted them, not because the app gave them a reason to stop (Rixen et al., 2023). Third, human attention leans towards threats.

None of this means people are weak-willed. It means the environment is designed to keep options open, and our brains are tuned to notice bad news. The science and psychology of endless scrolling walks through each mechanism and the studies behind it.

What does the research actually say about harm?

The honest answer is: less than headlines suggest, and with important caveats. A 2025 meta-analysis pooling 71 studies found that heavier short-form video use was associated with poorer attention and self-control, and more weakly with poorer mental health (Nguyen et al., 2025). But a careful analysis of three very large adolescent datasets found that digital technology use explained at most 0.4% of the variation in wellbeing (Orben & Przybylski, 2019).

Both can be true. Averages hide a great deal of individual variation, and most studies are correlational: they show that two things move together, not that one causes the other. We flag these limits wherever we cite a study.

What helps if you want to scroll less?

The most reliable strategies change the environment rather than relying on willpower: moving apps off the home screen, using built-in timers, keeping the phone out of the bedroom and deciding in advance what you will do when the urge arrives. Our guide to healthy screen-time habits has step-by-step settings for Android and iPhone and an honest note on what each tip is based on.

If you are curious about how social media can be used deliberately rather than compulsively, our explainer on doomscrolling versus professional trend research looks at the November 2026 news about a “doomscroller” job and why structured trend analysis is a different activity. To see how ideas and formats move through networks, read how social media trends spread.

Frequently asked questions

Is doomscrolling a medical diagnosis?

No. Doomscrolling is an everyday word, not a clinical diagnosis. Researchers have built questionnaires to measure it, but no major diagnostic manual lists it as a disorder.

Does doomscrolling cause anxiety?

Studies find that doomscrolling and distress tend to go together, but most are surveys taken at one point in time, so they cannot show which comes first. Anxiety may drive scrolling, scrolling may feed anxiety, or both.

Is all scrolling bad for you?

No. Large studies find average links between screen use and wellbeing are small, and the American Psychological Association says social media is not inherently beneficial or harmful. What you look at, when, and how you feel afterwards matter more than minutes alone.

References

Each link and its bibliographic details were checked on 6 November 2026. DOI links go to the publisher’s record.

  1. Macquarie Dictionary (2020). Word of the Year 2020. Macquarie Dictionary (Australia). www.macquariedictionary.com.au/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2020/Named doomscrolling its 2020 Committee's Choice Word of the Year and defined it as continuing to read news feeds even though the news is mostly negative and often upsetting.
  2. Nguyen, L., Walters, J., Paul, S., Monreal Ijurco, S., Rainey, G. E., Parekh, N., et al. (2025). Feeds, feelings, and focus: A systematic review and meta-analysis examining the cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use. Psychological Bulletin, 151(9), 1125–1146. doi:10.1037/bul0000498Pooling 71 studies (98,299 participants), heavier short-form video use was associated with poorer attention and inhibitory control and, more weakly, poorer mental health. Associations, not proof of cause.
  3. Orben, A., & Przybylski, A. K. (2019). The association between adolescent well-being and digital technology use. Nature Human Behaviour, 3(2), 173–182. doi:10.1038/s41562-018-0506-1Across three large datasets (n = 355,358), the association between digital technology use and adolescent wellbeing was negative but small, explaining at most 0.4% of the variation.
  4. Robertson, C. E., Pröllochs, N., Schwarzenegger, K., Pärnamets, P., Van Bavel, J. J., & Feuerriegel, S. (2023). Negativity drives online news consumption. Nature Human Behaviour, 7(5), 812–822. doi:10.1038/s41562-023-01538-4Using thousands of randomised headline tests from Upworthy, each additional negative word in an average-length headline increased click-through rate by 2.3%.
  5. Rixen, J. O., Meinhardt, L.-M., Glöckler, M., Ziegenbein, M.-L., Schlothauer, A., Colley, M., Rukzio, E., & Gugenheimer, J. (2023). The loop and reasons to break it: Investigating infinite scrolling behaviour in social media applications and reasons to stop. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 7(MHCI). doi:10.1145/3604275A one-week field study (N = 46) found most reasons people left a scrolling session came from their surroundings, not the app, and described an inner session loop inside an outer habit loop.