doomscrolling
US/ˈdumˌskɹolɪŋ/
doomscrolling noun: the practice of continually reading Internet news about catastrophic events. Also the present participle and gerund of doomscroll.
Noun
doomscrolling (uncountable)
- The practice of continually reading Internet news about catastrophic events.
- Step 1 is to acknowledge the burden that doomscrolling creates for our health, Dr. Gazzaley said. “You have to realize you don’t want to live your life in a hamster wheel of complete news consumption,” he said.2020 July 15, Brian X. Chen, “You’re Doomscrolling Again. Here’s How to Snap Out of It.”, in New York Times
- I assured them that while doomscrolling was a difficult online pitfall, it wasn't one they needed to fall in to^([sic]).2020, Tanya Goodin, My Brain Has Too Many Tabs Open: How to Untangle Our Relationship with Tech, page 167
- Synonyms:
- doomsurfing
- Antonyms:
- bloomscrolling
Also used as
doomscrolling is also the present participle and gerund of doomscroll.
Examples of doomscrolling in a sentence
- It would be easy enough to say just stop doing it, but with everything happening in the world right now, it’s impossible to completely avoid doomscrolling.2021 January 24, Tallie Proud, “Twitter accounts to follow to break up the doomscrolling”, in Tallie Proud, archived from the original on...
- But this is 2021 and after a year and a half of COVID-19, of racial and socioeconomic unrest, viewers may be tuning in for a respite from doomscrolling daily news.2021 July 30, “Editorial: Welcome to the 2021 Pandemic Games: Thrills, spills and COVID”, in Boston Herald:
- Now doomscrolling is back in ways not seen since the beginning of the Covid pandemic.2022 March 6, James Tapper, “Obsessed? Frightened? Wakeful? War in Ukraine sparks return of doomscrolling”, in The Guardian:
- There is only so much negativity you can absorb before you have to take a deep breath and ask yourself, Do I really need to spend all day doomscrolling?2025 November 4, Alexandra Petri, “Mike Johnson: I Am Tuning Out the News Cycle to Focus on Self-Care”, in The Atlantic:
Synonyms of doomscrolling
Antonyms
Forms of doomscrolling
| alternative form | doom-scrolling |
|---|---|
| alternative form | doom scrolling |
Origin of doomscrolling
From doom + scrolling, from the practice of scrolling through timelines and news feeds on a computer or mobile device; originally in a context of being dissatisfied with current socio-political conditions and headlines. Popularized and surged during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Words formed from doomscrolling
Questions about doomscrolling
- What does doomscrolling mean?
- Doomscrolling means the practice of continually reading Internet news about catastrophic events.
- How do you use doomscrolling in a sentence?
- It would be easy enough to say just stop doing it, but with everything happening in the world right now, it’s impossible to completely avoid doomscrolling.
- What part of speech is doomscrolling?
- Doomscrolling is a noun.
- How do you pronounce doomscrolling?
- Doomscrolling is pronounced /ˈdumˌskɹolɪŋ/ (US).
Words near doomscrolling in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: doomscrolling (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-doomscrolling.wav.
Cite this entry: “doomscrolling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/doomscrolling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.