Is doomscrolling here to stay?

Doomscrolling, a term popularized during the COVID-19 pandemic, refers to the frequent scanning on devices to read negative, distressing news on topics like wars, mass shootings, natural disasters, and political unrest.

Though five years have passed since the days of tracking pandemic casualties, the trend continues to escalate and pose a threat to mental and physical health, according to experts at Harvard Medical School.

“Our brains and bodies are expertly designed to handle short bursts of stress. But over the past several years, the stress just doesn’t seem to end. Doomscrolling is our response to that,” said lecturer and stress expert Aditi Nerurkar, MD, MPH, in a Harvard Medical School publication.

“We’re hypervigilant and scanning for danger. The more you scroll, the more you feel you need to,” Nerurkar is quoted as saying.

Women and people with a history of trauma are most likely to doomscroll, according to Richard Mollica, MD, director of the Harvard Program in refugee trauma at Massachusetts General Hospital. That is because that demographic often feels unsafe in the world. For them, doomscrolling is a trigger.

According to Harvard experts, physical ramifications of doomscrolling include stomach aches, headaches, muscle tension, neck and shoulder pain, difficulty sleeping, lack of appetite and elevated blood pressure.

Research on the mental health effects have been studied more closely.

For example, a review published in “Applied Research in Quality of Life,” links doomscrolling with worse mental health and life satisfaction.

Several studies cite feelings of anger, sadness, anxiety, despair, distress, and uncertainty as other consequences.

While some people may doomscroll about a variety of topics, others focus on a specific subject.

A 2025 cross-sectional study out of the Netherlands looked at the relationship between general doomscrolling and climate change-specific doomscrolling, using a sample of 365 participants.

Results showed a significant correlation between the two types.

The research also examined risk factors like anxiety and depression and protective factors such as social support and coping skills on both types of doomscrolling.

The study’s authors emphasized the need to design interventions that empower individuals to navigate the negativity in news.

Ariane Ling, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist at the Steven A. Cohen Military Family Center at NYU Langone Health. In an interview with World Economic Forum, she said doomscrolling existed before COVID and she has seen the effects it has on patients—including hopelessness.

Further, patients with co-occurring conditions like substance use, trauma and PTSD have had those issues compounded by doomscrolling.

“In the age we are in now, there is no shortage of bad news. It seems like it is never-ending,” Ling noted.

Phones, social media and headlines demand attention and humans are hardwired to learn and want to know what is going on.

“Doomscrolling is a result of partly how humans are naturally, and partly the current environment,” Ling said.

She advises patients to set time limits on phone and technology use; adopt regular sleep schedules; and find other means, such as journaling, to express anxious or depressive thoughts as an alternative to reaching for the phone and reading more bad news.