Doomscrolling describes the activity of continually looking at distressing news and social media content.

The word combines two other words- doom and scroll.

Doom refers to a catastrophe, an unavoidably bad future, or death. It can be used as a noun with the word “feeling” in sentences such as, “I have a feeling of doom whenever I read the news.” It is also a verb and is commonly used with the passive voice: “He was doomed to fail his exam because he never studied.”

In the modern context, the verb scroll means to move texts, images, or content across a display screen: “You have to scroll down the page to find the like button.”

In combination, doomscrolling is scrolling through social media that gives one a sense of emotional discomfort or pain.

Here are some examples of how to use it in a sentence:

Simple present tense: “Every night I doomscroll before I go to bed.”

Continual tenses: “I stayed up late last night because I was doomscrolling.”

Gerund used as a noun: “I hate doomscrolling, but I do it anyway.”