Doomscrolling

The compulsive consumption of negative or anxiety-inducing content on a phone, even when you know it's making you feel worse.

What It Means

Doomscrolling is the compulsive, prolonged consumption of negative or anxiety-inducing content on a phone, typically through social media, news feeds, or short-form video apps, even when the person knows it's making them feel worse. The term was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2020, during the early pandemic period when the behavior became widely recognized.

Three things separate doomscrolling from regular phone use: the content is selected for distress (war, outrage, threat, drama), the behavior is compulsive rather than chosen, and the person typically feels worse after rather than better. By all three criteria, it functions like a behavioral addiction — the same dopamine pattern, the same loss of control, the same persistence despite negative consequences.

Research published in Health Communication in 2022 found that around 16.5% of US adults report 'severely problematic' news consumption with measurable links to mental and physical health outcomes. The relationship between doomscrolling and anxiety is bidirectional: anxious people doomscroll more, and doomscrolling makes you more anxious. Once you're in the loop, it sustains itself.

How This Relates to ILTY

ILTY is built for the moments when the doomscroll is happening — usually late at night, when your prefrontal cortex is depleted and the standard 'use grayscale, set a timer' advice fails. Mr. Relentless will not tell you to feel your feelings or take a deep breath. He'll ask what you're avoiding when you reach for the phone, which is the question that actually breaks the loop.

Example

It's 11:47 PM. You opened Instagram intending to send a single message. Forty minutes later you've watched 60 reels about strangers' kitchens, three news clips about distant disasters, and one argument about a TV show you've never watched. You feel slightly worse and definitely not sleepy. You know you should put the phone down. You scroll for another 15 minutes anyway. That's the loop.