doomscrolling
/DOOM-skroh-ling/ · noun/verb · Hacker Culture · Origin: 2020
Definitions
The compulsive habit of continuously scrolling through negative or distressing news and social media feeds, even when doing so worsens one's mood or anxiety. The term surged during the early COVID-19 pandemic when lockdowns combined with an unrelenting news cycle created a perfect storm of digital anxiety consumption. Recognized by psychologists as a maladaptive coping mechanism related to uncertainty.
In plain English: The bad habit of endlessly scrolling through depressing news on your phone, even though it makes you feel worse.
Example: "It's 2 AM and I've been doomscrolling climate collapse threads for three hours. My therapist is going to love this."
Etymology
- 2018
- The term 'doomscrolling' appeared sporadically on social media, describing the compulsive consumption of negative news on infinite-scroll feeds.
- 2020
- The COVID-19 pandemic and U.S. election cycle caused explosive adoption of the term. Doomscrolling became a widely recognized behavior as people compulsively refreshed news feeds.
- 2020-2021
- Merriam-Webster, Oxford, and other dictionaries tracked 'doomscrolling' as a word of the year candidate. Mental health professionals began studying its effects on anxiety and sleep.
- 2022-Present
- Tech companies responded with screen time controls, 'take a break' features, and feed customization. 'Doomscrolling' entered permanent tech/cultural vocabulary as a cautionary concept.
Origin Story
The compulsion to keep reading bad news you cannot control
**Doomscrolling** (or doomsurfing) entered mainstream usage during the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, though the behavior existed long before. Financial analyst Karen Ho's daily Twitter reminders to stop doomscrolling helped popularize the term.
The word perfectly captures the experience: scrolling through an endless feed of negative news, unable to stop despite increasing anxiety. Social media algorithms amplify the effect by prioritizing engagement, and bad news engages more than good news.
Psychologists linked doomscrolling to the brain's **negativity bias** -- an evolutionary trait that makes threats more attention-grabbing than rewards. In ancestral environments, this kept you alive. On Twitter, it just keeps you awake at 2 AM reading about things you can't change.
Coined by: Various (Karen Ho popularized awareness of the behavior)
Context: COVID-19 pandemic, early 2020
Fun fact: Merriam-Webster added 'doomscrolling' to its dictionary in 2020, one of the fastest adoptions of a new word. The term's rapid spread was itself an example of the viral information dynamics it describes.