Doomscrolling Explained
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References: every study and source we cite

By Influish Editorial Team · Published

Short answer

This page lists all 28 sources cited across the site, 21 of them peer-reviewed papers. Every DOI and link was opened and its title, authors, year and journal were checked on 6 November 2026. Each entry has a one-line note on what it shows and, where relevant, its main limitation.

How did we check these references?

For journal articles we confirmed the bibliographic record through the DOI registry (Crossref) and checked our summary against the published abstract or the publisher’s page. For organisations and dictionaries we opened the page and quoted or paraphrased only what it says. Where we could not open a source, we did not cite it. Help pages from Google and Apple change often, so their menu names may differ on your phone.

The notes below are deliberately short. To see how each source is used in context, follow the links from the science of endless scrolling, how trends spread and healthy screen-time habits. Spotted a problem? See our corrections policy.

The word itself

  • 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.
  • Limbong, A. (2020). Doomscrolling On A Staycation? Here Are The OED's 'Words Of An Unprecedented Year'. NPR, 23 November 2020. www.npr.org/2020/11/23/938183252/doomscrolling-on-a-staycation-here-are-the-oeds-words-of-an-unprecedented-yearReports that Oxford Languages did not pick a single 2020 Word of the Year and published a 'Words of an Unprecedented Year' report instead.
  • University of Florida News (2022). UF study finds 'doomscrolling' is a unique behavior. University of Florida News, January 2022. news.ufl.edu/2022/01/doomscrollingUniversity press summary of Sharma, Lee and Johnson (2022): doomscrolling was measurable as its own behaviour, was more common among men and younger adults, and its direction of causation with anxiety is unclear.

Psychology and app design

  • Sharma, B., Lee, S. S., & Johnson, B. K. (2022). The dark at the end of the tunnel: Doomscrolling on social media newsfeeds. Technology, Mind, and Behavior, 3(1), 144–156. doi:10.1037/tmb0000059Developed and tested a survey scale for doomscrolling and found it distinct from simply wanting to stay informed. Cross-sectional, so it cannot show cause and effect.
  • Satici, S. A., Gocet Tekin, E., Deniz, M. E., & Satici, B. (2023). Doomscrolling Scale: its association with personality traits, psychological distress, social media use, and wellbeing. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 18(2), 833–847. doi:10.1007/s11482-022-10110-7Across three studies (N = 378, 419 and 460) doomscrolling was associated with social media addiction and fear of missing out, and its link with lower wellbeing ran through psychological distress. Correlational, self-report data.
  • Montag, C., Lachmann, B., Herrlich, M., & Zweig, K. (2019). Addictive features of social media/messenger platforms and freemium games against the background of psychological and economic theories. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(14), 2612. doi:10.3390/ijerph16142612Analyses design elements in popular apps that can prolong use and links them to classic psychological theories, while noting the effect of any single element is hard to isolate without platform data.
  • 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.
  • Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Psychology, 5(4), 323–370. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.5.4.323A wide review arguing that bad events, feedback and information generally have stronger effects on people than equivalent good ones.
  • Rozin, P., & Royzman, E. B. (2001). Negativity bias, negativity dominance, and contagion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5(4), 296–320. doi:10.1207/S15327957PSPR0504_2Sets out the concept of negativity bias: negative entities tend to be more salient and potent than comparable positive ones.
  • Soroka, S., Fournier, P., & Nir, L. (2019). Cross-national evidence of a negativity bias in psychophysiological reactions to news. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(38), 18888–18892. doi:10.1073/pnas.1908369116In a 17-country experiment, people on average were more physiologically activated by negative than positive news videos, with large differences between individuals.
  • 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%.

Wellbeing, attention and sleep

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Hunt, M. G., Marx, R., Lipson, C., & Young, J. (2018). No more FOMO: Limiting social media decreases loneliness and depression. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 37(10), 751–768. doi:10.1521/jscp.2018.37.10.751143 US undergraduates randomly assigned to limit three apps to 10 minutes each per day for three weeks reported lower loneliness and depression than controls. Small, single-campus sample.
  • Allcott, H., Braghieri, L., Eichmeyer, S., & Gentzkow, M. (2020). The welfare effects of social media. American Economic Review, 110(3), 629–676. doi:10.1257/aer.20190658In a randomised experiment, deactivating Facebook for four weeks increased subjective wellbeing and offline time, but also reduced factual news knowledge.
  • American Psychological Association (2023). Health Advisory on Social Media Use in Adolescence. American Psychological Association, May 2023. www.apa.org/topics/social-media-internet/health-advisory-adolescent-social-media-useStates that using social media is not inherently beneficial or harmful to young people, and that findings suggesting causal associations are rare.
  • Hale, L., & Guan, S. (2015). Screen time and sleep among school-aged children and adolescents: A systematic literature review. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 21, 50–58. doi:10.1016/j.smrv.2014.07.007Screen time was adversely associated with sleep (mainly shorter and later sleep) in 90% of 67 studies reviewed; the authors note a causal link was not confirmed.

How content spreads

  • Berger, J., & Milkman, K. L. (2012). What makes online content viral?. Journal of Marketing Research, 49(2), 192–205. doi:10.1509/jmr.10.0353Content evoking high-arousal emotions (awe, anger, anxiety) was shared more; low-arousal content such as sadness was shared less. Positive content was more viral than negative overall.
  • Brady, W. J., Wills, J. A., Jost, J. T., Tucker, J. A., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2017). Emotion shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(28), 7313–7318. doi:10.1073/pnas.1618923114In 563,312 posts on polarising issues, each additional moral-emotional word was associated with about 20% more diffusion, mostly within like-minded groups.
  • Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359(6380), 1146–1151. doi:10.1126/science.aap9559On Twitter (2006–2017), false rumours spread farther and faster than true ones; novelty and emotional reactions may explain part of the difference.
  • Goel, S., Anderson, A., Hofman, J., & Watts, D. J. (2016). The structural virality of online diffusion. Management Science, 62(1), 180–196. doi:10.1287/mnsc.2015.2158Introduces 'structural virality' to separate broadcast-style spread (one big account) from person-to-person chains, showing popularity and virality are different things.
  • Centola, D. (2010). The spread of behavior in an online social network experiment. Science, 329(5996), 1194–1197. doi:10.1126/science.1185231People were much more likely to adopt a behaviour when reinforced by several contacts; it spread farther in clustered networks than in random ones.

Habits, tools and support

  • Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009. doi:10.1002/ejsp.674Time to reach near-maximum automaticity for a new daily behaviour ranged from 18 to 254 days; missing one day did not materially derail the process.
  • Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119. doi:10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38002-1Meta-analysis showing that 'if–then' plans (when situation X arises, I will do Y) help people act on their goals.
  • Holte, A. J., & Ferraro, F. R. (2023). True colors: Grayscale setting reduces screen time in college students. The Social Science Journal, 60(2), 274–290 (online 2020). doi:10.1080/03623319.2020.1737461Reports that switching phones to grayscale reduced screen time among college students. One population; effects may differ elsewhere.
  • Google (2026). Manage how you spend time on your Android phone with Digital Wellbeing. Android Help (accessed 6 November 2026). support.google.com/android/answer/9346420?hl=enOfficial steps for the dashboard, App timers, Bedtime mode and Focus mode. Menu names vary by phone maker.
  • Apple (2026). Set schedules with Screen Time on iPhone. iPhone User Guide (accessed 6 November 2026). support.apple.com/guide/iphone/set-schedules-with-screen-time-iphb0c7313c9/iosOfficial steps for Screen Time schedules and limits. Feature names depend on the iOS version.
  • Press Information Bureau, Government of India (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare) (2024). Tele MANAS: Revolutionizing Mental Health Care in India. PIB Research Unit, 13 October 2024. static.pib.gov.in/WriteReadData/specificdocs/documents/2024/oct/doc20241013415701.pdfTele MANAS is a free, 24/7 national tele-mental-health helpline (14416 or 1800 891 4416) launched on 10 October 2022, with counselling in 20 Indian languages.