How to stop doomscrolling: 9 things that actually work
Why you keep scrolling when you actually want to stop, and what helps break the cycle. Without throwing your phone away.
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You pick up your phone to quickly look something up. Twenty minutes later you’re still scrolling, and you can’t remember why you picked it up. Sound familiar? That’s doomscrolling: endlessly working your way through feeds, while it doesn’t actually make you feel any better.
The good news: it isn’t your fault. Feeds are built to never end. There’s always one more video, one more post, one more notification. So if you want to stop, you don’t need more willpower. You need a few smart tricks.
1. Find out how much you really scroll
Most people underestimate their screen time. On an iPhone you can see the exact numbers under Settings › Screen Time. Curious what that adds up to over a lifetime? Try the scroll calculator.
2. Pick a goal, and cut down gradually
Going from three hours to zero rarely works. Pick an end goal and work towards it step by step. In an experiment at the University of Pennsylvania, students limited their use of Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat to about ten minutes per app per day for three weeks. Afterwards they felt less lonely and less down than the group that carried on as usual. It was a small study, but it gives a useful target: around 30 minutes a day.
3. Move the apps off your home screen
What you see, you use. Put social apps in a folder on the second or third page. It seems like a small change, but that extra swipe gives you just enough of a moment to ask whether you really want to.
4. Turn off notifications
Every notification is an invitation to start scrolling. Switch off notifications from social apps, and only let messages from real people through.
5. Keep your phone out of the bedroom at night
Scrolling in bed costs sleep, and a bad night makes you more prone to endless scrolling the next day. Put your phone in another room and use a regular alarm clock.
6. Know what you’ll do instead
Breaking a habit works better when you replace it with another one. Decide in advance what you’ll do when you feel the urge: get a glass of water, step outside, message a friend. Or take a two-minute break with the crab.
7. Use your phone’s own limits
Under Screen Time you can set app limits and a downtime schedule in which only certain apps work. You can always ignore them, but they create a moment of conscious choice.
8. Do it together
Change is easier when someone is watching along. Agree with a friend that you’ll both scroll less and tell each other how it’s going. That’s exactly what HabitCrab is made for: your crab perks up when you scroll less, and your friends can see it.
9. Go easy on yourself
You’ll have days when it doesn’t work out. That’s normal. Look at the whole week, not that one evening, and simply pick up where you left off.
In short
You don’t stop doomscrolling with willpower alone. Make it harder to start, easier to do something else, and find someone to do it with. Small steps, a little less every week.