It shouldn’t come as any surprise that multiple studies have associated doomscrolling – compulsively consuming bad news and depressing content – with negative impacts on mental health.
Resisting the urge to do this can be especially challenging at times of international crisis like this, but it’s also never more important than right now …
A recent meta study entitled The Influence of Doomscrolling on Mental Health is just one of many to indicate the potential damage we can do to our mental health when we pick up our phones and endlessly scroll through bad news and other depressing content. Based on the results of 17 empirical studies, it concluded:
Across predominantly cross-sectional studies, consistent associations were found with anxiety, depression, stress, and reduced resilience.
Media psychology researcher Reza Shabahang told Wired that it can even reach the level of being considered traumatic.
“Trauma is not experienced solely through direct personal exposure,” he says. “Consistent exposure to images or reports of traumatic incidents can elicit acute stress responses and, in some cases, symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress.” The result is not always trauma itself, but a nervous system that struggles to return to a state of calm.
It can be a difficult habit to break because times of crisis create uncertainty, and the brain can be fooled into thinking that the solution is more information. In reality, more scrolling just creates more stress.
There are steps you can take to either quit or reduce the amount of doomscrolling you do on your phone:
- Schedule news intake for specific times, and limit both frequency and duration
- Turn off notifications and badges for news sources
- Reduce or avoid usage of apps with infinite scrolls
I addressed this issue for myself back in 2018 with an app and notification diet, and still highly recommend this approach.
- Official Apple Store on Amazon
- Apple’s iPhone cases: iPhone 17 | iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max | iPhone Air
- Wireless CarPlay adapter (2026 update)
- AirTag holders and accessories
- Mac Pro-style Mac mini casing
- NordVPN – privacy-first VPN with no logs and independent audits to verify
Photo by Marco Palumbo on Unsplash
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments