Is doomscrolling wrecking your mental health? The big surprise nesting within our doomscrolling habit is that too much digital exposure can actually obscure our authentic depression symptoms. It can be hard to tell the difference between clinical depression and screen-induced sadness. Doomscrolling burns out our dopamine receptors. What’s more, all those “hot takes” or “cautionary tales” can leave us with panic fatigue, decision fatigue, and a sense that we just engaged in hundreds of cognitive battles without ever looking up from our screen. In this post, we’ll get real about the negative effects of doomscrolling. We’ll also discuss the difference between living with depression and needing to step away from the phone.
How to Tell If You’re Hooked on Doomscrolling
Your mental health is likely struggling if you’re locked into doomscrolling. Many of us who had healthy relationships with the Internet got sucked in during COVID-19. After all, we just wanted to stay updated. However, the habits we latched onto during lockdown now have many of us refreshing the page to stay on top of weather disasters, crime, politics, and sensational headlines with no real benefit.
Can doomscrolling cause depression? A 2023 analysis of three studies links doomscrolling with worse mental well-being and life satisfaction. In addition, doomscrolling causes greater levels of existential anxiety. Here are some signs that you’re worsening mood and negative outlook are tied to your compulsive scrolling:
- You’re attracted to negative news stories or social media content.
- You’re seeking out information that affirms your negative views of the state of the world.
- You feel the need to stay connected to the news around the clock. You feel anxious or unsettled if you haven’t picked up your phone to scroll your feed.
- You find yourself scrolling out of habit automatically without making the conscious choice to do it.
- You pick up your phone to consume content to stave off feelings of anxiety, grief, loneliness, or boredom.
The only true cure for doomscrolling-induced depression is a digital detox. Start by auditing your screen time. You may be surprised to find that you are spending the equivalent of a part-time job scrolling during your “off” hours. Consider putting your phone away when you’re home, deleting apps from your phone, or asking an accountability partner to help you stay off of feeds. Need some encouragement? A 2025 study found that blocking mobile Internet on smartphones for just two weeks improves sustained attention, mental health, and subjective well-being.
What If It’s Clinical Depression?
If you have genuine depression that isn’t simply a physiological reaction to too much screen time, changing your screen habits won’t change how you feel. If you’ve been muddling through in daily life, there’s a high likelihood that you actually have something called high-functioning depression (HFD). People with HFD are able to complete daily tasks while dealing with depression symptoms. There’s even a chance that your dependence on doomscrolling is a way of numbing your feelings or remaining distracted. Whether you believe you have functional depression or major depressive disorder (MDD), the only way to confirm your diagnosis is by working with a licensed mental health professional.
Chronic depression and anxiety can be treated using a variety of science-backed options. The most common forms of therapy for depression are talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and art therapy. In addition, many people have success with meditation, exercise, and prioritizing social connections with people outside of the Internet.
Would you like to talk to a mental health professional for depression? Bloom Therapy offers in-person and virtual mental health services in PA. Using art therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), brainspotting, and traditional talk therapy, we help our clients explore trauma, grief, depression, and the mental health challenges so many of us face in the digital era. Book a consultation today