I definitely associate negative emotions with my doomscrolling behavior. Angst is the best word I can find to describe the feeling. For me it usually focuses around some major news cycle (war, politics, catastrophes, etc.).

I don't think you necessarily have to be searching for bad news to be doom scrolling. The problem is with most of these services (this website included) is that even if you're trying to read limited topics, you'll still get bombarded with bad news

Take currently for example, every corner of the internet is saturated with US politics, even for those of us outside of the US. I just want to read about interesting technology.

Fully agree. I've been searching, in vain, for sites that just give me fascinating/interesting science/tech/..., and failed to find anything that doesn't get me in a negative spiral.

Would love to be proven wrong with an example :)

https://arstechnica.com/ (tech, space, science news, maybe avoid discussion pages to avoid spiral)

https://www.tomshardware.com/ (tech - computers, 3D printers, raspberry pi, somewhat consumer sales oriented)

https://phys.org/ (academia summaries)

https://arxiv-sanity-lite.com/ (arXiv papers recommended)

https://www.pewresearch.org/ (mostly interesting survey factoids, does covers politics, other negative inducement)

I understand the "doom" in doom scrolling differently.

You're right that in general it's about getting those random dopamine hits when something nice appears in the news feed.

However, after some time, you got a lot of the nice stuff and no exciting stuff appears anymore. At that point, you're still scrolling, hoping for a dopamine hit. It does not come because you are satiated, desensitized and the algorithm no longer has good stuff to offer you.

I get it here on Hacker News. After coming too often and scrolling too much, I already clicked on all the good links. All that is left is either not interesting, or stuff I've looked at before. I still scroll, doomed to find nothing. And yet I scroll.

"I have no content and I must scroll"

No. I think it's one of those situations where the word has changed meaning for certain groups of people, like a game of telephone, because dopamine scrolling and doom scrolling are semantically close. It's kind of like how gen alpha has a different view of what "preppy" means than what previous generations would have thought.

What does preppy mean for alphas?

Dictionary.com has an article about the current meaning:

https://www.dictionary.com/e/the-new-meaning-of-preppy/

Weird they do not even mention tiktok trend to intentionally mistype words (originally to circumvent certain content filters).

I would guess there is some link between this trend and the word `pretty`, but I'm no linguist or tiktoker

> adjective used to describe someone who dresses in fashion associated with college preparatory (“prep”) school that gives the impression of old money

I thought it was about stocking life supplies in the basement though.

That's prepper not preppy

Isn't that the old, pre gen alpha definition?

I thought so, but apparently no

> We all know what the word preppy means, right? It’s the word we use to describe those rich kids that look down on anyone whose shoes cost less than a car. It’s the perfect word to describe the pompousness and snootiness of the crustiest of the upper crust.

AFAIK - "Doomscrolling can also be defined as the excessive consumption of short-form videos or social media content for an excessive period of time without stopping"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomscrolling

Yeah, unless not stated in this article, this is not doom scrolling. This seems more like an addiction issue, which is great that it’s being addressed. But it wouldn’t fit the definition of doom scrolling, which is an obsessive compulsion for searching of negative news.

That's not what I thought doom scrolling meant. I thought it specifically referred to the existential doom of endless scrolling for a dopamine hit.

The doom refers to the news and info type.

In 2025 it's fair to say it's just scrolling. The doom part is implied.

Very much depends on what content you consume. The shy has always been falling, but there's plenty of other stories.

The sky has been falling for a while, but the chunks were much smaller.

Personally, this seems like an out of touch definition akin to Gen Z’s version of “dirty laundry”. When I first began to see doomscrolling appear in the digital vernacular it was almost exclusively in reference to scrolling with no end in sight, mindless scrolling, wasting inordinate amounts of time scrolling, etc. with no reference to the tone or themes of content consumed other than that it was short-form and ultimately unfulfilling.

But that is exactly how I expect a dictionary definition of a relatively new and tonally ambiguous term to present itself.

Out of touch? How so? And according to you what would be a more proper definition?

The difference I see with the example you give is that “Dirty laundry” is a metaphor, not a definition of a recent phenomenon.

The definition listed online in dictionaries reads as though it was defined by someone who did not really know what “doom scrolling” was - they understood what “doom” and “scrolling” were independently, so they made the claim that the “doom” in doom scrolling had to do with the themes and tone of the content, where in my experience online the “doom” in doom scrolling actually represents then endless and mindless consumption of vapid content. Existing in a state of mindless repetitive dopamine scrolls equivalent with being “doomed”, the stagnation of other pursuits for the nothingness of scrolling, I could go on. This is all my opinion of course.

I think the proper definition for doom scrolling has been mentioned multiple times by others in this thread and it would be something like:

Rapid consumption of mobile short form content for extended periods of time, often with no end goal in mind.

Others have done better than me, but that’s my two cents.

For me it describes the feeling I have AFTERWARDS. It’s like eating a lot of sweets. They taste great while you’re at it. You feel awful afterwards.

> For example, if I'm feeling stressed/anxious, I'll scroll/browse/distract myself to avoid the negative feelings. I'm not seeking them like doom scrolling says.

In history, what was the equivalent to this? I think a lot of the negative connotation is related to "it's new and therefore it's probably bad compared to whatever humans used to do".

I believe it implies that it will inevitably result in your doom, because you won't be able to achieve much in life.

Interesting all the interpretations of the meaning of 'doom' in this context. I thought it was because the never-ending feed meant that you'd scroll until the end of time, which is called 'doom' (or judgement day or doomsday) in older literature.

I think this means doom scrolling for many people too. I feel “doom”, so I scroll to distract from the emotions.

I feel the phrase came into common use during COVID pandemic, so things certainly felt more doom and gloom then. The connotation I think is with the type of negative content being consumed, which exasperates your own feelings.

No matter how much we wish we could stop, we are doomed to scroll.

It’s one of the lesser levels in Dante’s Inferno. We are in hell.

It initially referred to spending too much time scrolling through negative content, e.g. bad news, politics. But the term has at this point completed a transformation to meaning any excessive time-wasting scrolling.

I think doom scrolling is used to convey that you keep scrolling with no purpose or intention. It's that you want that dopamine or visual stimulation to keep going.

I personally use it to mean "there is bad news in the world and I'm obsessively watching it hoping for some glimmer of good news." If I use too much social media I just say literally that, too much social media.

Yeah, to me the issue isn't "doom" scrolling, it's just scrolling in general. By which mean mind-numbing consumption of low value content - auto mechanics showing off "you won't believe what my customer brought to my shop", car chases/crashes, dogs playing around doing silly stuff, trains crashing into things, all those fake "interview" segments where some guy is asking hot girls "what's your body count" or "what's your favorite position", blah, blah, etc.

Some of the stuff is genuinely funny and entertaining, and it would probably be OK in very limited doses. But I have fallen into a habit of (occasionally) starting out watching on ofe those things, and then continually swiping to the next one and watching that crap like a zombie until a hour has gone by. No bueno.

> For example, if I'm feeling stressed/anxious, I'll scroll/browse/distract myself to avoid the negative feelings.

Yes, that's doom scrolling

Doomscrolling == Channel Surfing.

"Doom" doesn't have to describe the content. It could be your state of mindlessness as you thoughtlessly iterate through your standard set of net waypoints and the content that's spoon fed to you therein.