Doom-Scrolling and Your Mental Health: The Connection You Can’t Ignore

You know the feeling. You pick up your phone “just to check something,” and suddenly an hour has disappeared as you’ve scrolled through an endless feed of troubling news, heated arguments, and concerning global events. You feel worse than when you started, yet you can’t seem to stop.

At Televero Health, we’re seeing more and more people whose mental wellbeing is being significantly impacted by this modern habit of “doom-scrolling” – the compulsive consumption of negative news and social media content. They come to us feeling anxious, overwhelmed, and helpless, often not making the connection between these feelings and their digital consumption habits. What they discover is that what seems like staying informed is actually affecting their mental health in profound and measurable ways.

Maybe you’ve experienced this yourself. Maybe you’ve found yourself unable to put down your phone despite feeling increasingly tense, sad, or angry as you scroll. Maybe you’ve noticed that your anxiety spikes after consuming news or social media, but you keep returning to these sources as if drawn by a force beyond your control. Maybe you tell yourself you need to stay informed, even as the information you’re consuming leaves you feeling powerless rather than empowered.

This pattern isn’t a character flaw or a sign of weakness. It’s a natural response to the unprecedented information environment we now live in – one that’s specifically designed to capture and hold our attention through strong emotional triggers, regardless of the cost to our wellbeing. Our brains simply didn’t evolve to process the volume, intensity, and global scope of troubling information that’s now available at our fingertips 24/7.

When you doom-scroll, several things happen in your brain and body. Your nervous system responds to each troubling headline or post as if the threat were immediate and personal, triggering small but significant stress responses. These accumulate over time, leaving you in a state of chronic low-grade fight-or-flight activation. The constant exposure to problems you can’t solve creates a sense of helplessness that can contribute to or exacerbate depression. And the addictive nature of infinite scrolling – with its unpredictable rewards and lack of natural stopping points – keeps you engaged even as your wellbeing suffers.

We see the impact of this pattern in many ways. The client who can’t fall asleep because their mind is racing with worst-case scenarios about world events they can’t influence. The person whose general anxiety has dramatically increased alongside their news consumption. The individual who finds themselves increasingly cynical, hopeless, or numb after hours spent absorbing stories of suffering and conflict without any balancing context or actionable outlets.

The challenge is that doom-scrolling creates a painful cycle. The worse you feel, the more you may be drawn to check the news or social media – either seeking reassurance that hasn’t materialized, looking for information that might help you feel more in control, or simply being pulled by the habit itself. But this increased consumption often leads to feeling even worse, creating a downward spiral that can be difficult to interrupt.

This doesn’t mean you need to disconnect completely from current events or social platforms. Staying reasonably informed and connected can be valuable for many reasons. But it does mean developing a more intentional relationship with how, when, and why you consume this content – one that acknowledges its potential impact on your mental health and creates boundaries that protect your wellbeing while still allowing you to stay appropriately informed.

In therapy, we often help people develop this more balanced approach. This might include strategies like setting specific times for news or social media consumption rather than checking throughout the day. Or creating tech-free zones or times in your home and life. Or curating your feeds to include more positive or constructive content alongside more challenging information. Or developing a practice of following consumption of difficult news with concrete actions, however small, that help transform feelings of helplessness into a sense of agency.

What we’ve found is that many people who adjust their digital consumption habits experience significant improvements in their mental health – often more quickly than they expect. Not because they’ve buried their heads in the sand, but because they’ve created a relationship with information that serves their wellbeing rather than undermining it. That allows them to stay appropriately informed without being constantly immersed in a stream of distressing content. That acknowledges the real limits of what any individual can absorb or address.

If doom-scrolling has become a habit that’s affecting your mental health, know that you’re not alone. That your brain is responding normally to an abnormal information environment. That small changes in how you consume news and social media can make a significant difference in how you feel day to day. That staying informed doesn’t have to mean staying immersed in a constant stream of troubling content.

Because the truth is, your capacity to care about and contribute to the world isn’t served by exhausting yourself through endless exposure to its problems. It’s served by maintaining your own wellbeing as a foundation for whatever actions you choose to take. By consuming information in ways that inform and empower rather than overwhelm and deplete. By recognizing that being a responsible citizen of the world includes being responsible for your own mental health.

Ready to explore a healthier relationship with news and social media? Start here.