Stop Doomscrolling: How to Build a Healthier Relationship with Your Phone

You pick up your phone "for a minute." Suddenly it’s 45 minutes later, you’ve seen three horrible news stories, five perfect lives, and your mood has crashed.

That’s doomscrolling: compulsively consuming negative or endless content that leaves you drained instead of informed.

How Doomscrolling Affects You

Signs your scrolling is hurting more than helping:

• Your mood drops after being online.
• You feel anxious but can’t stop scrolling.
• You reach for your phone the second you feel bored or uneasy.
• Your sleep suffers because you’re on your phone late in bed.

Phones aren’t the enemy—it’s the way we use them, especially when we use them to escape feelings.

Step 1: Notice Your Triggers

Ask yourself:

• When do I doomscroll most? (late at night, first thing in the morning, after stress?)
• What feelings am I avoiding? (boredom, anxiety, loneliness?)

Awareness is the first step toward changing the habit.

Step 2: Make Mindless Scrolling Harder

Create friction between you and your doomscroll habit:

• Turn off non-essential notifications.
• Move social apps off your home screen.
• Log out so it’s less instant to access.
• Charge your phone away from your bed.

Small obstacles make automatic habits less automatic.

Step 3: Make Healthy Phone Use Easier

Decide what you want your phone to be for:

• Learning (podcasts, audiobooks, educational apps)
• Connection (voice notes, meaningful chats)
• Inspiration (saved boards, creative ideas)

Then:

• Move these apps to your home screen.
• Keep an ebook or podcast ready.
• Create a "Healthy Phone" folder you open on purpose.

Step 4: Set Simple Boundaries

Try one or two of these:

• No phone for the first 30 minutes after waking.
• No phone in bed at night.
• A social media "window" (for example, 20–30 minutes in the afternoon).

You can even say, "I’ll scroll deliberately for 15 minutes," then stop—intentional use feels different than mindless use.

Step 5: Tell People Your New Rules

If people expect instant replies, you can say:

"I’m trying to use my phone less for my mental health, so if I reply slowly sometimes, it’s nothing personal."

Most people will get it—and some might even copy you.