How to Stop Doomscrolling: A Practical Plan for “Just Five More Minutes”

You opened your phone to check one thing. Now the tea is cold, the room is dark, and you’re reading comments beneath a story you wish you hadn’t seen.

“Five more minutes” sounded reasonable three videos ago.

If you’re wondering how to stop doomscrolling, start by changing one scrolling session: notice what prompted it, add a pause before opening the app, and decide what will make you stop. Have something easy to do afterward. An ambitious plan to replace every spare minute with self-improvement can wait.

You can still read the news and enjoy social media. The aim is to make your next choice more deliberate, especially when another update is giving you more worry than useful information.

Below is a practical approach you can test tonight. The suggested timings are starting points to adjust, rather than research-backed thresholds or rules everyone needs to follow.

Why is doomscrolling so hard to stop?

Doomscrolling means repeatedly consuming negative or distressing online information and finding it difficult to disengage. It might look like refreshing breaking news, moving from one frightening headline to another, or checking reactions long after you understand the story.

Mindless scrolling is broader. Losing half an hour to cooking videos can leave you frustrated, but it isn’t necessarily doomscrolling. The distinction matters: a worried news reader may need a reliable update schedule, while someone watching endless clips may need a better way to take a break.

One reason the habit can feel reasonable is that each individual check has an explanation. Perhaps there’s an update. Perhaps someone has clarified what happened. Perhaps the next post will make the situation feel less uncertain.

But an open-ended feed doesn’t give you the obvious finish that a chapter or a single article does. You have to supply the stopping point yourself.

Your surroundings matter, too. An app on the first screen is easy to open while you’re waiting for a kettle. A notification offers a reason to check it while you’re writing an email. By the time you notice what you’re doing, you may already be several posts in.

To understand your own doomscrolling habits, ask a small question: “What was happening just before I picked up the phone?” That answer gives you somewhere concrete to intervene.

What does research tell us about doomscrolling?

The evidence is worth taking seriously, with a few distinctions.

A 2024 study of 800 university students in Iran and the United States found an association between doomscrolling and existential anxiety, including worries about meaning and existence. The samples included 620 students in Iran and 180 in the U.S. Because the study examined survey relationships, it cannot establish that scrolling caused the anxiety, or tell us whether the same relationship holds for everyone.

A different question is whether changing phone access can help. A randomized trial published in PNAS Nexus in 2025 enrolled 467 participants to test blocking smartphone internet access for two weeks. It reported improvements in well-being, mental health measures, and objectively measured sustained attention. However, only 119 participants met the study’s compliance threshold of keeping the block active for at least 10 of 14 days. This was a broad internet restriction, not a test of a five-minute timer, a learning quiz, or ScrollWise.

The wish to cut back is also visible in survey data. In Pew Research Center’s 2024 survey, reported in 2025, 45% of U.S. teens ages 13–17 said they spent too much time on social media. That measures teens’ perceptions of social media use, not the prevalence of doomscrolling among adults.

These findings support taking unwanted scrolling seriously. They don’t establish one ideal screen-time limit or prove the five steps below as a combined intervention.

How to stop doomscrolling: five practical steps

1. Find the moment that starts the session

For your next few unplanned checks, write down where you were and what you were about to do. Keep it brief: “Sofa, tired, avoiding washing up” tells you plenty.

The point is to find a repeated situation you can change. “I use my phone too much” is hard to act on. “I open the news while waiting for dinner” suggests a specific experiment.

Perhaps you start with a useful check of tomorrow’s weather, then drift into a news feed. Next time, open the weather directly and put the phone down when you have the answer. You’ve given the session a purpose and a finish.

Start smaller: Notice just one session today. No spreadsheet, full-day monitoring, or detailed diary required.

2. Add a pause before your usual app

Choose one change: move the app off your first screen, disable its nonessential alerts, log out, or open a news source through a browser bookmark instead.

You’re making room for a question: “What did I come here to do?” That question is easier to ask before a feed starts than halfway through it.

For example, keep messages available, but move the app where you read news into a folder on another screen. When you reach for it while making coffee, the extra action can serve as your reminder to decide whether you actually want an update.

Choose a pause you’ll tolerate. A complicated restriction you immediately remove won’t give you much to learn from.

Start smaller: Turn off one category of promotional or recommended-content notifications. Keep alerts you need for work, family, or safety.

3. Choose an alternative that fits the moment

Before your usual scrolling time, put one easy alternative within reach. It should meet the need you actually have.

If you need rest, try sitting with a drink or listening to a familiar song. If you want company, send someone a message. If you want something interesting, leave a book open or save one short lesson.

This matters because “stop scrolling and do something productive” can feel like another demand at the end of a long day. A replacement you dislike is unlikely to be appealing when the phone is beside you.

Suppose you usually scroll after dinner. Put headphones next to your chair and choose an album beforehand. When you close the app, you already know what comes next.

Start smaller: Put the phone down and stay where you are for a minute. You don’t have to fill every pause.

4. Decide on a stopping point before you open the feed

Choose a boundary you can recognize: read one saved article, check one scheduled update, or use a short timed session. Decide what you’ll do when you reach it.

A vague promise to stop “soon” is easy to renegotiate. A specific boundary gives you something to notice, even if you don’t follow it perfectly.

You might decide: “I’ll read the evening summary, then charge my phone in the kitchen.” For an open-ended feed, a timer can prompt the same transition. Give the alarm an instruction such as “Close the app and plug in the phone.”

Ten minutes could be a useful starting experiment, but it has no special status. Choose a boundary that suits the task and revise it if it’s unrealistic.

Start smaller: Finish the post or article you’re on, then close the app before opening another.

5. Review the pattern and change one thing

After a few days, look at your phone’s usage summary alongside your brief notes. Ask when sessions ran longer than you wanted, what you were getting from them, and which stopping cues you noticed.

Total screen time gives you only part of the picture. A long video call with a friend and an hour of distressing headlines can feel very different afterward.

Imagine that lunchtime checks stayed brief, but bedtime sessions kept growing. Keep the lunchtime setup and adjust the evening one: choose an earlier news check or move the charger away from the bed.

Measure something that matters to you, such as closing the feed when intended or making room for an activity you missed. Change one part of the setup so you can tell whether it helped.

Start smaller: Ask tomorrow, “What made it easier to stop?” Repeat that detail.

What if you scroll because you’re exhausted?

On tired evenings, make the alternative easier. You may want quiet entertainment or a few minutes without anyone needing something from you. A familiar podcast, a comfortable chair, or a conversation can be enough. Learning is an option when it appeals to you; it doesn’t need to become the price of every break.

If social media is part of your job, define the work task before opening it: answer customer messages, publish a post, or check a particular account. Where practical, use a direct bookmark or a separate work session. Keep the tools your work requires available.

If you keep overriding limits, inspect the moment when you do it. Is the limit interrupting a real task? Is the alternative unappealing? Would a different time or stopping cue fit better? Adjust the plan around what happened.

For news, choose a time and a source you trust, then decide what would count as genuinely useful new information. You might read a daily summary and keep essential local emergency alerts enabled. During a situation that directly affects your safety or family, your information needs will understandably differ.

Try this tonight

Keep the experiment small enough to finish in a few minutes.

1. Pick one app. Choose the place where a quick check most often turns into a session you regret.
2. Name the situation. Write something specific: “After dinner, on the sofa, before I shower.”
3. Set one stopping cue. Choose a single article, a scheduled update, or a timer. Decide what you’ll do when it ends.
4. Prepare the next activity. Put out your headphones, make a drink, or leave a book within reach. Choose something you actually want.
5. Check tomorrow. Did you notice the cue? Was it easier to stop? What would you change?

If you scroll longer than planned, keep that observation. Maybe the alarm was easy to miss, or your chosen alternative felt like work. That gives you a useful adjustment for tomorrow’s attempt.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to delete social media?

You can begin with a smaller change. Try a defined purpose, fewer nonessential notifications, or a scheduled check. If those changes don’t give you the distance you want, temporarily removing an app is another option. Keep access to the people and services you rely on.

What if I keep overriding my limits?

Look at why you extend the session. You might need a longer window for a genuine task, a more noticeable stopping cue, or an easier alternative. Try one adjustment before adding several restrictions. A repeated override tells you that the current setup needs attention.

Is all scrolling doomscrolling?

No. Doomscrolling specifically involves repeated engagement with distressing information. Scrolling through hobbies or jokes may be enjoyable, unwanted, or both at different times. Consider what you’re seeing, how you feel afterward, and whether the session displaced something you wanted to do.

When should I seek more support?

If distress or phone use is persistently interfering with sleep, work, study, or relationships, consider talking with a qualified health professional. You don’t need to wait until things feel unmanageable. The experiments in this guide are practical starting points, not a diagnosis or treatment.

Give your next session a stopping point

Tonight, choose one app, one stopping cue, and one easy thing to do afterward. See what happens, then adjust.

If a learning checkpoint sounds useful, take a look at ScrollWise. The Android app is currently in beta testing and puts a short quiz before selected apps. You can join the waitlist to hear when early access opens. Its effectiveness hasn’t been established by the studies discussed here.

Sources and related reading

• Shabahang and colleagues, 2024: Doomscrolling, existential anxiety, and related beliefs. Published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports.
• Castelo and colleagues, 2025: Blocking mobile internet on smartphones. Published in PNAS Nexus.
• Pew Research Center, 2025: 10 facts about teens and social media. Includes survey methods and links to the underlying reports.

Related reading: What Is Doomscrolling? How to Recognize the Habit

About the author

ScrollWise is building an Android app that places a short learning quiz before selected apps. This guide was prepared for the ScrollWise blog using the sources linked above. ScrollWise has a commercial interest in tools that change scrolling habits; the article has not been clinically reviewed.