I reach for my phone all the time, no matter what the situation may be. Whenever I feel bored, anxious, or lonely, it just becomes automatic to pick up my phone and scroll through all my social media apps. Sometimes I tell myself I will just scroll for a minute but before I know it, it’s been hours of endless scrolling through videos and updates of people I barely know.
A lot of people find this habit harmless, and many (even I) find comfort in it. It fills the silence of my life, distracts me from overthinking, and makes me feel seen and connected when I am alone. Beneath this constant scrolling, it is slowly reshaping our emotional health, attention spans, and the quality of our relationships that aren’t online.
Doom scrolling begins as a simple, easy escape from real life, but it eventually turns into a cycle that, in the end, makes you feel more anxious, isolated, and disconnected.
Social media and digital content can help drown yourself in entertainment. The short videos on TikTok and Instagram reveal bursts of dopamine that give you the illusion of happiness and connection. This helps you avoid your thoughts and distract yourself from challenges in your life that you want to avoid.
When we constantly escape our thoughts through our phone, we train our brains to avoid this discomfort, and instead of processing emotions, we suppress them. This cycle over time makes it harder to understand how you actually feel and what you need. Your mind becomes empty of self-awareness, and you lose touch with your inner voice.
Emotionally, doom scrolling can become draining. You constantly see highlights of other people’s vacations, relationships, and achievements, and you subconsciously start comparing yourself and your life to these people, even though you know it’s not reality. This creates feelings of jealousy and low self-worth a lot of the time.
The irony of it is that the more time you spend online trying to make yourself feel better, the worse you end up making yourself feel.
I am trying to limit how long and how often I doom scroll because I have realized it has been taking over my life. Procrastinating assignments, laundry, and even writing this article because I was glued to my phone has to come to an end.
I am trying to incorporate things into my life to replace scrolling, like reading romance novels, working out, organizing my life, and hanging out face-to-face with people. I am also going to give myself a limited amount of time I am able to be on my phone and set a screen time for myself.
Endless scrolling offers the illusion of escape, but it quietly steals the moments that make our lives meaningful.