Wellbeing — How To Feel Fucking Amazing

How to Stop Doom Scrolling (And What We Did Before Phones Existed)

You scroll to escape anxiety. You end up with more of it. Here is why and how to actually stop.

You pick up your phone for thirty seconds. Forty minutes later you are still scrolling through a feed full of disasters, arguments, bad news and things designed to make you feel vaguely terrible about the state of everything. You did not plan to do this. You do not want to be doing this. And yet here you are, again, unable to stop.

This is doom scrolling. And it is not a character flaw, a lack of discipline, or a sign that something is wrong with you. It is your brain doing exactly what it was designed to do, in an environment that has been specifically engineered to exploit that design for profit.

Understanding why you cannot stop is the first step to actually stopping.

“You scroll to escape anxiety. The content generates more anxiety. The algorithm knows this and uses it. That is the whole trap.”

What Is Doom Scrolling?

Doom scrolling — sometimes called doomsurfing — is the habit of compulsively consuming negative, distressing or anxiety-inducing content online, unable to stop even when the content is clearly making you feel worse. It is distinct from ordinary social media use because of its specific focus on bad news and the feeling of being unable to pull away.

The term exploded into mainstream vocabulary during the COVID-19 pandemic when millions of people found themselves glued to their phones, unable to stop refreshing feeds full of worst-case scenarios. But doom scrolling did not start or end with a pandemic. It is now a consistent daily feature of modern life for a significant proportion of adults and increasingly teenagers too.

Why You Cannot Stop — The Science

Your brain has an instinct to close what researchers call the information gap. When something threatening or uncertain is happening — and the news is almost always threatening and uncertain — your brain pushes you to keep seeking information that might help you make sense of it or prepare for it. This is a survival mechanism. It kept your ancestors alive.

The problem is that no amount of scrolling actually closes the information gap. The news cycle is infinite. The uncertainty never resolves. And every scroll delivers a small dopamine hit of novelty that briefly satisfies the urge before immediately recreating it.

On top of this, social media algorithms are specifically designed to maximise your engagement time. Negative content generates more engagement than positive content — more clicks, more shares, more comments, more time on platform. So the algorithm feeds you more of what keeps you there. Not what makes you feel better. What keeps you scrolling.

You scroll to escape discomfort. The content creates more discomfort. You scroll more to escape that discomfort. This is not a coincidence. It is the business model.

What Doom Scrolling Does to Your Mental Health

The effects of regular doom scrolling on mental health are well documented and consistently negative. Increased anxiety and depression. Disrupted sleep from blue light exposure and an overstimulated nervous system. Reduced concentration and attention span. A distorted view of reality skewed heavily towards the catastrophic. And a nervous system kept in a chronic state of low level threat response — never quite relaxed, never quite safe, always half expecting the next terrible thing.

The financial cost is less talked about but equally real. Hours lost to scrolling are hours not spent building, creating, earning, connecting with actual people, or simply resting. The hidden time tax of doom scrolling is enormous and almost nobody accounts for it.

“Doom scrolling does not just cost you your mental health. It costs you your time, your focus, your sleep and your financial productivity. All of it, for content that makes you feel worse.”

But What Did We Actually Do Before Phones?

Here is the question worth asking. Not as nostalgia. As a genuine practical alternative. What did people actually do with the time that is now consumed by scrolling?

They went to the beach and jumped in the sea. They went to the park and played ball. They read actual books from beginning to end. They called people on landlines and had proper conversations. They cooked without filming it. They walked without headphones. They sat in gardens doing nothing in particular. They experienced boredom — which, it turns out, is absolutely essential for creativity, mental rest and the processing of difficult emotions.

They were not happier because life was simpler. Life was often harder. But their nervous systems had the opportunity to actually rest between inputs. The bad news arrived once a day in a newspaper rather than in an infinite real time feed. The gap between events and knowing about them created space that no longer exists.

• Went to the beach and jumped in the sea without photographing it
• Played ball in the park until it got dark
• Read books cover to cover in one sitting
• Sat in the garden with a cup of tea and genuinely switched off
• Walked anywhere without checking their phone every three minutes
• Had dinner with people and talked to them the entire time
• Got bored — and let the boredom turn into something
• Slept without a glowing screen on the bedside table
• Watched one television programme and then turned the television off
• Went to bed when they were tired instead of when the algorithm finally released them

The boredom nobody talks about

Boredom has been almost entirely eliminated from modern life and it is quietly costing us everything. Boredom is where ideas come from. Where emotions get processed. Where the brain finally gets to rest and consolidate. Where creativity lives. The constant stimulation of doom scrolling does not just make you anxious. It makes you less creative, less emotionally regulated and less able to think clearly. Bring boredom back. Deliberately. It is not a waste of time. It is what your brain actually needs.

How to Actually Stop Doom Scrolling

• Turn off all news and social media notifications You decide when to check the news. Not the algorithm. Turning off notifications removes the constant external trigger that pulls you back in before you have made a conscious choice to go there. This one change alone significantly reduces daily screen time for most people.
• Put your phone in another room at night The bedroom should be for sleep. A phone on the bedside table means the last thing your brain processes before sleep and the first thing it reaches for on waking is a feed of content designed to agitate it. Buy an actual alarm clock. Leave the phone in the kitchen.
• Set a specific news window and stick to it Fifteen minutes in the morning. That is it. You will not miss anything important. If something is genuinely significant someone will tell you. The world does not require your constant monitoring to function. Give yourself permission to check out.
• Replace the habit rather than just removing it Willpower alone almost never breaks a habit long term. You need to replace the scrolling with something that meets the same underlying need. Novelty and escape — try a book. Stimulation — try a walk. Connection — call an actual person. The need is legitimate. The method just needs updating.
• Go outside without your phone Even for twenty minutes. Leave it behind deliberately. Walk to the park. Sit by water. Look at things that are not screens. Your nervous system will start to regulate almost immediately. This is not a metaphor. Being in nature measurably reduces cortisol levels and anxiety. It is free and available to almost everyone.
• Notice what you are actually feeling when you reach for your phone Anxious? Bored? Lonely? Avoiding something? The phone is not the problem. It is the solution you have found to an underlying feeling. Naming that feeling gives you a choice about how to respond to it. The scroll is automatic. The awareness interrupts the automatic.
• Use your phone’s screen time tools Set app limits for social media and news apps. Use grayscale mode to make the screen less visually stimulating. Move social media apps off your home screen so accessing them requires a deliberate choice rather than a reflex. Friction is your friend here.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is doom scrolling?

Doom scrolling is the habit of compulsively consuming negative news and distressing content online, unable to stop even though it is making you feel worse. It is driven by the brain’s instinct to seek information during uncertain situations, combined with social media algorithms specifically designed to keep you engaged with anxiety-inducing content.

How do I stop doom scrolling?

Turn off notifications. Set a specific news window and stick to it. Put your phone in another room at night. Replace scrolling with a physical activity — a walk, time outside, a book. The key is replacing the habit with something that meets the same underlying need rather than simply trying to stop through willpower alone which almost never works long term.

Why can't I stop doom scrolling?

Because your brain is wired to seek information during uncertainty and social media algorithms are specifically designed to exploit that instinct. Every scroll delivers a small dopamine hit of novelty. The content is predominantly negative because negative content generates more engagement. You scroll to escape anxiety and end up generating more of it. This is not a willpower failure. It is a design feature.

What does doom scrolling do to your mental health?

It increases anxiety and depression, disrupts sleep, reduces concentration, creates a distorted view of reality skewed towards the catastrophic, and keeps the nervous system in a chronic state of low level threat response. Regular doom scrolling is consistently linked to higher levels of psychological distress across all age groups.

What did people do before smartphones existed?

They went to the beach and jumped in the sea. They went to the park and played ball. They read books, talked to people, sat in gardens, walked without headphones, cooked without filming it, and experienced boredom — which turned out to be essential for creativity, emotional processing and mental rest. Their nervous systems had space between inputs that simply no longer exists for most people.

Disclaimer: The content on this blog is written from personal experience and is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute medical or psychological advice. If you are experiencing significant anxiety or mental health challenges please consider speaking to a qualified professional. How To Feel Fucking Amazing accepts no liability for decisions made based on content published on this site.