doomscrolling

/DOOM-skroh-ling/

noun · verb form

Meaning

The repeated, hard-to-stop scrolling through negative, frightening, or distressing news and social-media content, usually in search of updates, reassurance, or a sense of control. The word can describe the activity itself, a single prolonged session, or the action in progress, as in “I’m doomscrolling again.”[2][3]

1. The compulsive consumption of bad or alarming news through a phone, news site, or social-media feed.
2. A prolonged session of scrolling through upsetting content, especially when the user keeps refreshing for more updates.
3. The present-participial form of doomscroll, used to describe someone actively engaged in that behavior.

Examples

“I said one quick news check and ended up doomscrolling for two hours.”

“Doomscrolling before bed was a terrible idea.”

“Put your phone down. You are fully doomscrolling.”

“The group chat is doomscrolling the election results again.”

“I opened the app for weather updates and got trapped in doomscrolling.”

Origin and spread

Doomscrolling is a compound of doom and scrolling. The word was circulating on Twitter by October 2018, although earlier online uses may exist. Business journalist Karen Ho helped popularize it in spring 2020 by using the term in nightly reminders to people consuming excessive amounts of pandemic news. Its use spread widely during the COVID-19 pandemic, when continuous feeds delivered a stream of alarming updates. Oxford Languages included the word in its 2020 pandemic vocabulary, and Macquarie Dictionary named it its 2020 Committee’s Choice Word of the Year.

How to use it

The term is informal and often self-deprecating, but it can also describe a genuinely distressing media habit. Reading a few important updates is not automatically doomscrolling; the word usually implies repetition, loss of control, and continued exposure despite feeling worse. It is not the name of a formal mental-health diagnosis.