Doomscrolling: caught in the pull of bad news

What this is about

We mean that getting stuck in a scroll when you're on your own: feeding yourself a stream of bad news, drama and upsetting clips you can't look away from — and an hour later you feel anxious, drained and somehow worse, yet keep going anyway. This compulsive scrolling through the negative has even earned its own name: doomscrolling.

How common is this?

Common and rising. Doomscrolling is now widespread enough to be studied across large groups — and reviews link it to worse wellbeing. WHO Europe also notes that heavy, passive scrolling goes hand in hand with lower wellbeing among teenagers. The compulsive negative scroll is a recognised modern trap — so your child isn't alone.

How you notice it

There are a few signs that scrolling has turned into doomscrolling:

• The longer the scrolling goes on, the worse you feel — but stopping still doesn't happen.
• You actively seek out distressing or upsetting content.
• What's left at the end is a feeling of anxiety, exhaustion, or that the world is unsafe.

Scrolling past the point where it still helps is the real signal.

What it does to you

Doomscrolling raises psychological tension and is linked to lower life satisfaction, more anxiety and a lingering unease. The body stays in a kind of quiet, constant alert — a sustained low-grade stress state that never settles. That's draining, even if outwardly you're just sitting calmly on the sofa.

Why it's so hard

The brain is wired to scan for threats — and the feed delivers an endless supply of them. So doomscrolling hijacks an ancient survival instinct. On top of that: a low mood makes you seek out content that matches it — which deepens the pull. This isn't a willpower problem, but a very human reflex that gets exploited here.

What actually helps

Not confiscating the device, but deliberately breaking the pull and changing the inputs. What works:

• Interrupt the pull physically: when the "worse, but can't stop" feeling appears, stand up, change rooms or activity.
• Set time limits for the apps where the scrolling most easily tips over.
• Curate the feed: mute accounts that reliably make you feel worse.
• Deliberately bring in other content too, instead of only following the negative.
• Acknowledge how strong the pull is — that eases the pressure and makes countering it easier.

Why this works

Doomscrolling is a kind of trance you slip into — a physical interruption (standing up, moving) snaps it more reliably than just "deciding to stop." And curating the inputs cuts off the supply of the threatening content the brain can't help scanning for — so the loop dries up at its source. What's decisive is the how: what teens help decide, they carry along.

What's worth talking about

Don't start with an accusation, but with an honest question — in a calm moment:

• "How do you actually feel after you've been on the phone a while — better or worse?"
• "Are there accounts that drag you down — shall we mute them?"
• "What would help you climb back out of a scroll hole like that?"

This is exactly where Digital Mastery comes in: both sides rate the same everyday life and see where the phone really becomes an issue — a fair basis for a conversation as equals instead of the next argument.