How to stop doomscrolling

THE SHORT ANSWER

Doomscrolling is scrolling through bad news long after it stops being useful. To stop: decide when you'll check the news instead of checking whenever you're bored, switch to sources that end instead of endless feeds, turn off most news notifications, use your phone's built-in app limits, and keep the phone out of the bedroom. The aim isn't to ignore the news. It's to get it in a form that has a last page.

What doomscrolling is

Doomscrolling means compulsively scrolling through negative news: wars, disasters, elections, economic gloom. You keep going even though each new post makes you feel worse and tells you little that you didn't already know. The word spread widely in 2020, when the pandemic gave everyone a constant stream of alarming updates and a lot of time on their phones. The habit itself is older than the word.

It usually happens in the gaps: in bed before sleep, first thing after waking, while waiting in a queue. Half an hour disappears and you come away more anxious and no better informed.

Why it's so hard to stop

If you've ever told yourself "just one more" and meant it, you know willpower alone doesn't work well here. Several things are pulling against you at once.

The feed has no bottom

Older media had natural endings: the last page of the newspaper, the end of the evening bulletin. Infinite scroll removed them. Aza Raskin, the designer who created infinite scroll in 2006, has since said publicly that he regrets it, because a page that never ends removes the moment when your brain would decide to stop.

Your brain is tuned for threats

Humans pay more attention to bad news than good news. It's an old survival instinct: noticing danger mattered more than noticing pleasant things. Feeds that rank posts by engagement learn this quickly and serve more of what grabs attention, which is often what alarms us.

Every refresh might bring something new

Pull-to-refresh works like a slot machine: usually nothing much, but sometimes a big update. Unpredictable rewards are among the strongest drivers of habit.

It feels responsible

Doomscrolling disguises itself as being a good citizen. Staying informed is important, so it feels wrong to look away. But scrolling past forty headlines about the same event isn't the same as understanding it.

What it does to you

The research is still young, but it consistently links heavy, compulsive news consumption with worse wellbeing:

• A 2022 study in the journal Health Communication surveyed 1,100 US adults and found that 16.5% showed signs of "severely problematic" news consumption: constantly thinking about the news, struggling to stop, and finding it interfered with daily life. That group reported far more stress, anxiety and physical symptoms. The authors note that a one-off survey can't prove which way the cause runs.
• In the American Psychological Association's 2017 Stress in America survey, 56% of Americans said staying informed caused them stress.
• The Reuters Institute's 2026 Digital News Report found that 42% of people across 48 markets sometimes or often avoid the news, up from 29% in 2017. In its 2025 report, the most common reason avoiders gave was the news's negative effect on their mood (39%), followed by feeling worn out by the amount of news (31%).

In other words, the pattern swings between two extremes: scrolling too much, then switching off entirely. Neither leaves you well informed.

9 ways to stop doomscrolling

You don't need all nine. Pick two or three that fit your day and stick with them for a few weeks.

1. Notice your triggers

For a few days, notice when you start scrolling. Is it in bed, first thing in the morning, during a work lull, after a stressful message? Most doomscrolling happens at predictable moments, and it's much easier to change a habit once you know when it fires.

2. Give the news a schedule

Choose one or two set times to catch up, such as with your morning coffee and once in the early evening, and leave the news alone in between. Very little news changes what you need to do within a few hours. Real emergencies will still reach you.

3. Switch to sources that end

This is the single most effective change. Replace endless feeds with something finite: a daily newsletter, a radio bulletin, a weekly magazine, or an app that gives you a fixed set of stories. When you reach the end, you're done, and that ending is the stopping point the feed took away.

4. Turn off most news notifications

Breaking-news alerts pull you back into the feed several times a day. Keep alerts from one source you trust for genuinely major events, and switch off the rest. On iPhone, go to Settings → Notifications. On Android, go to Settings → Notifications → App notifications.

5. Use your phone's built-in limits

Both major phone systems can cap how long you spend in an app:

• iPhone: Settings → Screen Time → App Limits. Set a daily limit for social and news apps. You can override it, but the pause is often enough.
• Android: Settings → Digital Wellbeing & parental controls → Dashboard, then set an app timer.

6. Keep the phone out of the bedroom

Late-night scrolling is the classic form of doomscrolling, and it costs you sleep too. Charge your phone in another room and use a cheap alarm clock. If that's too much, at least put it out of arm's reach.

7. Go deep instead of wide

Reading one story properly, including what happened, why it matters and how it got here, leaves you better informed than skimming forty headlines. It's also calmer. Many of the most alarming headlines are alarming partly because they arrive without context.

8. Add a little friction

Make scrolling slightly harder. Move news and social apps off your home screen into a folder, log out of social media so each visit needs a password, or turn on grayscale so the screen is less enticing. On iPhone it's under Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Color Filters. On Android, Bedtime mode in Digital Wellbeing can turn the screen grey at night.

9. Have something to do instead

Habits are easier to replace than to delete. Decide in advance what you'll do in those moments instead: a book on the bedside table, a puzzle, a podcast, a short walk. Research on habit formation suggests a new routine takes around two months, on average, to feel automatic, so give it time.

Staying informed without the scroll

Stopping doomscrolling shouldn't mean giving up on the news. The goal is a news habit that ends: a fixed amount, at a time you choose, with enough context that you understand what you've read and can put it down.

That's the idea behind Implica, which we make, so we're not neutral here. Instead of a feed, it gives you a short, curated set of the day's most important stories. Each one explains what happened, why it matters and who it affects, the background and what to watch next. You can tap any unfamiliar term for a quick explanation, or ask a question about the story. When you've read the day's stories, that's it. There's no bottom to keep scrolling toward.

Whatever you use, our guide to the best news apps compares the main options, including several free ones.

Questions people ask

Is doomscrolling bad for you?

Studies link heavy, compulsive news consumption with more stress, anxiety and poorer sleep, though most can't prove the scrolling causes these effects. The safest assumption is that a bounded news habit is healthier than an open-ended one.

Why do I doomscroll at night?

You're tired, so self-control is lower. You're alone with your thoughts, so worries surface. And the phone is right there. That combination makes bedtime the most common moment for doomscrolling, which is why keeping the phone out of reach at night works so well.

How long does it take to break the habit?

There's no fixed number. A well-known 2009 study from University College London found that new habits took anywhere from 18 to 254 days to become automatic, with an average of about 66. Expect a few weeks of effort before it feels natural.

Should I stop reading the news completely?

For most people, no. Switching off entirely leaves you less able to make decisions that the news affects, from voting to money. A better goal is less but deeper: fewer check-ins, finite sources, and more context.