Doomscrolling: The Habit Hijacking Your Mind

You think staying informed gives you control? It doesn’t. Doomscrolling-endlessly absorbing negative headlines-doesn’t make you smarter; it makes you numb. It hijacks your attention, keeps your nervous system on edge and feeds an illusion of control.

Misconception 1: “If I know everything that’s happening, I’ll be prepared.” The truth: exposure to constant tragedy lowers your mindfulness and traps you in anxiety loops. Misconception 2: “I can’t look away; this is how I stay connected.” Reality: what you call connection is secondary traumatic stress, a state in which your brain experiences trauma from events that never happened to you. Misconception 3: “Everyone doomscrolls; feeling drained is normal.” Wrong. Emotional fatigue is feedback that you’re exceeding your capacity for pain. Ignoring it is self-betrayal.

In a 2024 study of social media users, researchers found that doomscrolling didn’t directly harm mental health; instead, it harmed mindfulness and increased secondary traumatic stress. Mindfulness and secondary trauma fully mediated the relationship between doomscrolling and well-being. In other words, the more you fixated on negative news, the less present you became and the more indirect trauma you absorbed.

The fix is not to bury your head in the sand; it is to design a boundary. Schedule a time to check news, then log off. Curate sources instead of grazing. Practice mindfulness-notice when your breath shortens and your shoulders creep toward your ears. Fill your space with conversations, books and experiences that have nothing to do with global crises. Stop making other people’s disasters your nightly lullaby. Your habits are your real beliefs.

Reference: Taskin S et al., “Doomscrolling and mental well-being in social media users: a serial mediation through mindfulness and secondary traumatic stress” (2024).