RestoreAdults
We Asked Five People to Spill Their Doomscrolling Habits. Here’s What We Learned
Ashley Abramson
Hatch wanted to understand how and why we doomscroll, so we had in-depth conversations with five sleepers who can’t stop scrolling at night.
TikTok dopamine hits. Instagram FOMO. Subreddit rabbit holes. However you doomscroll, you probably know this bedtime habit isn’t great for your sleep.
It’s well known that blue light from your phone can interfere with your circadian rhythm, making it hard to settle down for rest. Scrolling through your feed — yes, even the fun videos! — can also keep your brain alert when you’re supposed to be winding down.
If we know doomscrolling isn’t good for us, then why do we keep reaching for our phones? With help from Director Ivan Cash, we talked to five people about their doomscrolling habits: how they got there, what content fills their midnight feeds, and how long they really scroll. Here’s what we learned.
Annmarie
Her deal: Accountant, self-diagnosed doomscroller, insomniac, and terrible sleeper.
What gets in the way of sleep? Not winding down and doomscrolling
Doomscroll time: 2-3 hours
Doomscroll content: Red pandas, Real Housewives, manifestation videos, “anarchy stuff”
Doomscrolling is like: Eating junk food
What she’s going to try: Manifesting good sleep (without her phone)
AnnMarie, a self-diagnosed doomscroller and insomniac, wants to prioritize sleep. But most of the time, she ends up in a TikTok rabbit hole until the wee hours of the morning. “I don’t remember the last time I woke up feeling good and happy,” she says. “I’m always dragging myself out of bed.”
Her bedtime routine starts out strong: After her skincare regimen, AnnMarie spends time gratitude journaling and visualizing. On rare occasions, she goes right to bed — but more often than not, she grabs her phone for a quick hit of dopamine.
Instead of the quick, lighthearted scroll session she intended, AnnMarie ends up scrolling for two or three hours. During that time, her feed changes from cute dogs and Real Housewives updates to intense political content that makes it even harder to sleep. “I don’t want to be thinking about the revolution,” she says. “I want to think about cute little animals and feeling good.”
Watch the full interview with Annmarie on YouTube.
Alana and Michael
Their deal: Alana is a dance teacher, and Michael is a sleight-of-hand magician
What gets in the way of sleep? Dogs in bed, Michael starfishing, their phones
Doomscroll time: 3 hours
Doomscroll content: Dogs, natural disasters, sports, conspiracy theories, politics, politics, politics
Doomscrolling is like: Cigarette smoking
What they’re going to try: Putting down their phones at night
For the five years that Alana and Michael have been together, their phones have been third-wheeling their relationship. The first step in their bedtime routine? Parallel scrolling. The pair look at their phones while watching TV, then they get in bed and scroll for another hour or two.
Michael spends most of his pre-bed scroll time on his Instagram feed, which he describes as a never-ending hole of conspiracy theories. He eventually musters the strength to swap his phone for sleep, but rest doesn’t feel as restorative. “Scrolling changes the energy of sleep because I’m going to bed feeling angry and hopeless,” he says.
The two unwind side by side but don’t feel like they’re closing out the day together. “I’m looking at natural disasters, and he’s looking at the Flat Earth [theory], and we’re just not connected,” Alana says.
If they weren’t on their phones, Michael and Alana both say they’d get better sleep — along with spending more time with their dogs and on their hobbies. “It makes me think back to when I didn’t have my smartphone, and I was interacting with humans a lot,” says Michael. “My best memories are never sitting in a room holding my phone.”
Watch the full interview with Alana and Michael on YouTube.
Kwame
His deal: Event producer, Muay Thai enthusiast
What gets in the way of sleep? Crazy dreams from doomscrolling
Doomscroll time: 3 hours
Doomscroll content: TikTok, Instagram, Relationship advice, Other people’s posts
Doomscrolling is like: A sense of dread
What he’s going to try: Going to sleep without a phone like they did in the early ‘90s
Kwame — who describes himself as “chronically online” — keeps his bedtime routine analog at first. He sets a glass of water on his nightstand, puts on his favorite PJs, and does his three-step skincare regimen. “Then, as I go into bed, I reach for my phone, and it’s time to look at social media,” he says. “As I’m scrolling and scrolling, I just doze off.”
Sometimes, Kwame scrolls in bed for three hours. Whether he’s checking in on friends’ social media pages or taking in TikToks about animation, video games, or politics, he usually stays up later than he wants, meaning fewer hours of rest. But the real problem is the sleep he does get doesn’t feel that restful.
Once Kwame dozes off, he wakes up almost every hour — and his TikTok-replay dreams keep his rest time from feeling peaceful. “The more I scroll, the more I dream about what I’m scrolling,” he says. The result? His bed feels more like a space of “dread and inconsistency” than a space for relaxation.
Watch the full interview with Kwame on YouTube.
Tori
Her deal: A nurse in the neonatal ICU and practitioner of “revenge bedtime procrastination.”
What gets in the way of sleep? Working night shifts, her circadian rhythm is out of whack
Doomscroll time: 1-2 hours before bed
Doomscroll content: Gym workouts, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Kardashians, microplastics
Doomscrolling is like: An itch you have to scratch
What she’s going to try: Making her phone inaccessible, striving for balance, a good therapist
Thanks to her work as a night-shift nurse, Tori says her sleep schedule is out of whack — and she realizes her doomscrolling habit isn’t helping. Rather than prioritizing a consistent bedtime routine, she usually opts for revenge procrastination before bed, spending time doing whatever she wants, which often happens to be scrolling through social media.
After watching TikTok for a few hours, she feels amped up and often anxious (self-diagnosing health conditions or stressing about microplastics will do that).
When she finally falls asleep, she often has nightmares. She pushes herself out of bed in the morning, and she has a tough time managing stress during the day. “Probably because I’m not well-rested,” she says.
