Doomscrolling

Doomscrolling means spending excessive time scrolling through a stream of distressing news or content, even though doing so makes one feel anxious, angry or sad. Recognised by Merriam-Webster as a dictionary word in 2023, the term gained wide currency during the COVID-19 pandemic to describe the compulsive consumption of bad news on social media and news feeds.

The behaviour is closely tied to how engagement-driven platforms, including Reddit's endlessly scrollable feeds and r/all, are designed: an infinite, algorithmically and vote-ranked supply of compelling content keeps users engaged, and emotionally charged or alarming material tends to perform well. Doomscrolling therefore matters to platform-governance debates about the mental-health effects of design choices that maximise time-on-site. It links the individual experience of feeling trapped in negativity to systemic incentives, and informs arguments for features that surface positive content, prompt breaks, or otherwise temper the reward loops that make doomscrolling so easy to fall into.