You’ve just woken up, bleary-eyed and still half asleep. What’s the first thing you do?
If you reach for your phone, you’re one of the 81% of Brits (according to the Independent, 9 January 2025) who opt to scroll before their feet touch the floor. Of those, 75% immediately check their social media feeds and 52% check news feeds.
Phones and social media have unlocked an entirely new way for us to access the news, one that is fast, convenient, and accessible.
However, it has also introduced us to the dangers of “doomscrolling”.
Doomscrolling became widespread during the Covid-19 pandemic, as many stuck at home turned to their phones for constant crisis updates. Its widespread use has since led to it being included as a word in the Merriam Webster Dictionary (September 2023) and the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (December 2024), with the latter defining it as: the action of constantly scrolling through (moving down through text on a screen) and reading depressing news on a news site or on social media, especially on a phone.
In fact, according to research from Puregym, reported on by the Eastern Daily Press:
Brits spend, on average, more than two hours a day doomscrolling on their phones.
This is equivalent to more than 12km of thumb movement every month, and only 1 in 8 people correctly guessed the distance scrolled.
9 in 10 admit they doomscroll knowing they should stop.
Doomscrolling has become normalised, and it has been proven to be a danger to your health and wellbeing.
Keep reading to find out how doomscrolling affects you and discover five habits to help you break the cycle.
Doomscrolling presents significant mental and physical health risks
According to the research from PureGym previously quoted in the article by the Eastern Daily Press, the impact of doomscrolling is not just on time, with 79% of those surveyed experiencing at least one physical symptom linked to extended periods of scrolling, and that’s not included the emotional toll as well. The article showed that
10% felt anxious, 20% drained and 28% guilty after extended periods on their phones
32% reported poor sleep
21% reported low energy and 15% suffered from brain fog.
In extreme cases, Harvard reports that doomscrolling can cause “popcorn brain”, a non-clinical mental state where it can feel as if your thoughts are scattered, and you are popping from one thing to another because you’ve been subject to constant digital stimulation.
Doomscrolling can also encourage a sedentary lifestyle, as well as headaches, neck and shoulder pain, low appetite, difficulty sleeping, and elevated blood pressure.
5 effective strategies to help you put down your phone
Extreme phone usage, or “problematic smartphone use”, commonly known as “smartphone addiction” is a psychological or behavioural dependence on a smartphone. If you’re affected, you might experience “nomophobia”, which while not a real phobia, is used to describe the phenomenon of having fear or anxiety when you are without your mobile phone or unable to use it (the term being short for “no mobile phobia”).
Problematic smartphone use is why it can be so hard to break phone habits like doomscrolling, even when you know it would be good for you.
Here are five practical tips to help you manage doomscrolling from the Mental Health Foundation:
1. Establish phone-free zones
The space you are in can have a major impact on how likely you are to doomscroll.
The bedroom, for example, is one of the most common areas in the home for doomscrolling. It’s also one of the most harmful, as extreme phone usage can impact sleep patterns.
It’s therefore important that you designate certain areas (where you are more likely to doomscroll or where doomscrolling can have the most negative effect) as phone-free zones. This separates you from the habit and encourages you to restore your healthy, positive relationship with the space.
2. Manage your social media feeds
You see bad news more than good news because it is more engaging. Psychology Today (based on a Nature Human Behaviour study) reports that when editors include negative words like “hate” and “worst” in headlines, more people click on them compared to when headlines include “love” and “best”.
Sifting through your social media and removing overwhelmingly negative news sources can help you reduce the chance of falling into a doomscrolling hole.
While it’s difficult to remove all negative news stories from your feed, creating a healthy balance between good and bad news can help you ensure that the time you spend on your phone is more positive and rewarding. After all, your social media feed is like having a personalised newspaper, and you get to decide what content you see.
3. Turn off push notifications
Hundreds of notifications can buzz from your phone each day. Some might be important work emails or must-answer calls, but many will be doom-and-gloom headlines encouraging you back to your screen for another doomscrolling session.
Turning off all unnecessary notifications reduces your exposure to doomscrolling triggers.
You can pick and choose what notifications you do receive in your phone settings. This means you can stop notifications from doomscrolling apps but enable phone calls and messages from your loved ones.
4. Set a time limit
It’s easy for time to slip away when you’re doomscrolling. Five minutes can easily turn into 30, then an hour, then an afternoon.
You can limit your screen time in your phone settings. Alternatively, you could set a timer or an alarm on your watch to remind you when to put your phone down or turn it off completely.
5. Swap scrolling for healthy habits
Sometimes the best thing to do is put your phone down and pick something else up instead. Mindfulness, reading, spending time with others, and exercising are all great self-care activities that can benefit your wellbeing. While they can involve digital screentime, and even periods on your phone (for example, try a video call with a friend instead of a solo sweep on the news), being able to balance the good with the bad, and pick up new habits along the way, is a good way to move past any dependencies on your smartphone.
An article by the Guardian carries many suggestions on what you can do to swap from depending on your phone, or other digital screen, in a way that negative impacts you, for a more mentally rewarding, positive alternative.
Get in touch
The news emanating from your phone might make the world seem like a bottomless pit of bad news. But small, simple changes can help you break the doomscrolling cycle and restore your faith in the future.
The same can happen with your personal finances.
Learn more about how we can help you discover true financial peace of mind. Set up a meeting today.