the.com/doomscroll
the dopamine slot machine where you keep losing and keep pulling the lever
means To keep scrolling through bad or distressing news online, unable to stop even though it makes you feel worse.
from A modern blend of "doom" — an Old English word, "dōm," that once meant simply "judgment" or "law" before darkening into the sense of fate and ruin — and "scroll," which itself traveled from old rolled manuscripts to the swipe of a thumb on glass. The compound is firmly a child of the smartphone age, gaining wide use around 2020 when there was, suddenly, an endless supply of doom to scroll through.
- coined
- Word surged into use during early 2020 lockdowns
- infinite scroll
- Designed by one engineer who later regretted it
- bad news bias
- Brains weigh threats heavier than good news
- sleep thief
- Late-night scrolling delays sleep and worsens mood
- dictionary status
- Merriam-Webster added doomscrolling officially in 2024
for instance
tiktok for you page — algorithmic feed starting 2016 that autoplays videos indefinitely, widely documented as particularly addictive for doomscrolling