A dimly lit phone screen illuminates the face of Grishma Sajith ‘27, the clock on her bedside table displaying 1:00 AM in bright numbers as she scrolls through her Instagram feed. Despite the countless posts of negativity about the unsure future of her generation that she scrolls past, she continues swiping her finger across the screen, going through the same tired routine that most of her nights follow.
Doom scrolling, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is the action of constantly browsing through and reading through a news site or on social media, especially on the phone. Sajith, despite noticing the harm in doom scrolling, can’t help but continue the same patterns.
“Everything happens online nowadays,” Sajith said. “Like when you’re not a part of it, it feels like you’re out of the loop. I even felt really out of the loop when I didn’t have TikTok.”
Many students like Sajith report heightened feelings of disconnection when they do not have access to social media, backed up by a study from the Gallup Familial and Adolescent Health Survey, which shows that the average time spent on social media ranges from the low end of 4.1 hours per day for 13-year-olds to the high end of 5.8 hours per day for 17-year-olds. Sajith expresses her concern that these long hours are often spent viewing content like video essays, which elevate more pessimistic content to social media users.
“I know [that] video essays have been a really big thing in the past few years,” Sajith said. “Sometimes they’re pretty insightful. Sometimes, they can give solutions on how to change the world. Sometimes, they just talk and complain about the world without even having a point to make, and those seem to do the best.”
While Sajith points to personal interactions she sees online, social studies teacher Melissa Fainman recognizes the excessive usage of social media among her students. From her experiences in the classroom, Fainman warns students not to spend too much time doomscrolling as it may lead to feeling overwhelmed and lost.
“The biggest danger is the loss of touch with what reality and perspective [are]and what it means for it to have that level of importance in your life,” Fainman said. “It is so difficult to close it and remove yourself once you’re on social media. It’s difficult to pull back and [realize that] my feet are on the floor.”
The overwhelming feeling of scrolling through constant negativity on social media has led some students, like Colby Nixon ‘26, to prohibit themselves from having any social media accounts. Despite this, Nixon recognizes the advantages that can come about from social media platforms, especially when it comes to exposure to news.
“[Social media] does help, at least engage some people who might otherwise be kind of tuned out,” Nixon said. “ You don’t have to take time out of your day to look for something. But there’s still obviously an aspect to, like, you’re not really controlling what you’re seeing.”
Nixon believes that many social media applications use something that is referred to online as ‘algorithmic amplification’, or outrage culture, where platforms prioritize content that generates the most reaction or engagement. Pew Research Center backs up Nixon’s idea, as their data shows that 3 in 4 social media users report encountering content that makes them angry.
“On X (formerly Twitter), they’re gonna give you a variety of opinions,” Sajith said. “They’re gonna give you neutral posts based on what’s popular. But it’s also up to you. If you want to see the replies, you’ll see people from both parties reacting to it, and it’s a choice to be respectful or disrespectful to be like, mature, immature, especially regarding [serious topics like] the election.”
While Sajith recognizes that algorithms track data, she believes it’s more of the user’s choice to engage in the “outrage culture.” She notes that while TikTok and Twitter may not be as reliable as news articles, they still share most factual information. Nixon agrees with Colby that news articles may be more similar to information on social media than people think.
“Everything has some kind of bias,” Nixon said. “Everything has some kind of stance on it. I think being able to understand what that stance is and being able to appreciate it or respect it is important to know the facts. I would say to look at it from a linguistic perspective and ask myself questions like, ‘How do I actually respond to this? How do I appreciate this information?’ to analyze how social media news affects me.”
To Nixon, the idea of being mindful of approaching news and information with an understanding of bias and information sourcing allows one to develop a more nuanced awareness of global events and their impacts. While Fainman understands Sajith and Nixon’s point that social media often gives more exposure and perspectives to world issues, she still advocates against social media as the sole platform to obtain the news, as it can be easily manipulated.
“The biggest problem I have is you get lots of snippets without necessarily the ability to click for the whole story, which means stuff gets taken out of context,” Fainman said. “You get reposts of, like, particular images that start to generate an idea without the actual reporting alongside it. And so for news specifically, I think that is a particularly poor venue, with the exception of reaching people quickly.”
Fainman finds that social media can trap individuals in echo chambers, an environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that match with their own, and make students more polarized in their perspectives as opposed to introducing them to different ideas. Much like Fainman, Sanjith notices these echo chambers tend to influence friend groups and interpersonal dynamics due to the reporting of world events and political decisions unfolding on these platforms.
“I’m not sure how many people would want to be friends with other people who don’t share the same opinion as them, and in social media, we just reinforce those own beliefs onto ourselves,” Sajith said. “So they’re naturally going to want to have a circle of friends with people who share the same opinions. And seeing their reposts on social media that agree with your own, and sending each other the same posts, all contribute to that echo chamber effect. ”
In Sajith’s friend group, she especially notices that they focus on the more negative aspects of issues, and have conversations on updates they get from social media platforms like TikTok or Instagram. As Fainman mentions, these echo chambers develop inside and outside of social media but are advanced by the practice of doomscrolling.
“The echo chambers and the lack of context, particularly for news, make it a bad source,” Fainman said. “It’s almost like you have to actually look up stuff to get positive news stories, I mean, the media, especially the news, is looking at garnering your attention and making you emotional on social media there, and that is done through negative emotions.”
Individuals like Sajith and Fainman acknowledge that doom scrolling is an issue and are concerned about the lack of solutions. Sajith advocates the urgency of seeking a solution as many people allow doom scrolling to replace necessary help.
“I think it’s nice that people are creating a safe space, or like a community that people can relate to and understand other struggles so they know they’re not alone by sharing about their mental health issues],” Sajith said. “However, I don’t think it’s good when it seems like it’s encouraging them to just let themselves sit in their suffering instead of trying to reach out for help. I know that getting help is hard and having to admit it is hard, but I think a lot of people online seem [to think] it’s easier to admit it there than to an actual therapist.”
Sajith raises concerns about how social media users are intensifying feelings of hopelessness by not reaching out for help when they recognize problems that influence them negatively. Fainman advocates that the solution can be found through collective movements, like government regulation, to mitigate the effects of doom scrolling.
“Yes, a person can set a timer [and make their efforts to reduce doom scrolling],” Fainman said. “But I really think that that focus on the individual’s ability misses all the structural issues that are going on here and where the profit is and where the money is, and it focuses and keeps the focus and tension on somebody’s life, which is very rare. Since this isn’t an individual problem, it doesn’t have individual solutions. It’s a collective we need social media companies and then also government entities creating them to take action.”