Glossary / Slang & Internet Culture

What does Doomscrolling mean?

Doomscrolling is compulsively scrolling through negative news or content even though it makes you feel worse. Coined around 2018 and mainstreamed during 2020, it names the loop where anxiety drives consumption and consumption drives anxiety. It is now shorthand for any unhealthy, trance-like scrolling session.

The original sense is news-specific: refreshing feeds during crises, absorbing bad headlines past the point of usefulness. Usage has broadened to cover any compulsive scroll — comparison-scrolling on Instagram, 2am TikTok holes — where the defining feature is that you feel worse and keep going.

It anchors a genre of digital-wellness content: screen-time challenges, "stop doomscrolling" app setups, and the companion coinage "hopecore" or "gratitude scrolling" as antidotes. For creators, it is also an audience-behavior reality: a lot of consumption happens in this low-mood autopilot state, which is part of why comforting and escapist content performs.

Used in the wild

Caption: "deleted twitter off my phone because I caught myself doomscrolling in the gym between sets."

Most used on:X (Twitter)TikTokInstagramReddit

FAQs about Doomscrolling

What does doomscrolling mean?

Compulsively consuming negative content in a loop that worsens your mood. The term emerged around 2018 and became universal during the 2020 news cycle.

How do people stop doomscrolling?

Common tactics in digital-wellness content include app time limits, removing apps from the home screen, grayscale mode, charging the phone outside the bedroom, and replacing the scroll trigger with another habit.

Related terms

Brainrot

Brainrot describes low-value, hyper-stimulating internet content — and the mental state from consuming too much of it. It also names the absurdist slang cluster (skibidi, gyat, sigma, fanum tax) and meme characters like the Italian Brainrot animals. Oxford named "brain rot" its 2024 Word of the Year.

Touch Grass

Touch grass is a way of telling someone they are too online: log off, go outside, literally touch grass, and reconnect with reality. It is deployed against people taking internet drama too seriously, and self-deprecatingly after realizing you have been scrolling for hours.

FYP (For You Page)

The FYP is TikTok's For You Page — the algorithmic home feed that serves videos based on your behavior rather than who you follow. Landing "on the FYP" is how videos go viral, which is why #fyp became a ubiquitous (and largely superstitious) hashtag. Other platforms' equivalents include Instagram's Explore and X's For You tab.

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