How Doomscrolling Is Impacting Social Media Users’ Mood

While “doomscrolling” first gained popularity during the pandemic as informal internet slang, it is now officially recognized by most major dictionaries. Exact definitions can vary, but the term is generally understood as a catch-all for any potentially harmful media usage behavior, from excessive consumption of negative news online to compulsive browsing of social platforms.  

A new Morning Consult survey shows that doomscrolling isn't just a recent addition to our cultural vocabulary, it's become a part of day-to-day life for many Americans, too. Nearly 1 in 3 (31%) U.S. adults who use social media said they doomscroll either “a lot” or “some,” and much higher shares of Gen Z adults (53%) and millennials (46%) said the same. 

Younger people are also more likely than the broader public to report negative feelings after being on social media for more than an hour, and the platforms that typically elicit this length of usage session — YouTube and TikTok — are among Gen Z’s most-used apps. Our research further highlights the generation’s complex relationship with social media, already the subject of both parental and governmental concern , and undoubtedly will have implications for both platform-specific and public policy.

Stop and scroll

Approximately half of U.S. adults who use social media said they use YouTube (52%) and TikTok (49%) for at least an hour or more at a time, notably more than any other tested platform. Facebook and Instagram yielded the next-largest share of hour-plus-per-session users at 36% and 35%, respectively.

However, the YouTube-TikTok screentime duopoly is even clearer among Gen Z adult social media users. Seventy percent of the cohort said they typically use the former for an hour or longer, and more than 3 in 5 (64%) said the same about the latter. This is aligned with previous Morning Consult research, which found that Gen Zers’ strongly prefer video content over more stagnant online formats, like written articles. 

Entertainment is the one of the primary forces compelling this kind of lengthy social media use for most demographics, including Gen Z adults. And in many ways, this is by design. Platforms have always jockeyed to play host to the most engaging content on the internet, but this competition has increased markedly alongside TikTok’s rise to prominence in the United States. 

That said, when it comes to extended social media sessions, other, slightly less fun motivations are also at play — especially for young people. Majorities of Gen Z adults who use social media said they often do so for more than an hour at a time as a result of nervousness (55%), sadness (54%) or lack of sleep (78%). Gen Z adults are also much more likely than the average U.S. adult to report using social media for hours on end late at night, the time of day most often associated with doomscrolling. And these factors appear to be dimming their perceptions of the content they’re consuming.

Fewer Gen Z feel positively after scrolling on social media

A plurality of most generations reported that the content they see after using social media for a prolonged period is largely positive. Gen Z adults, however, are more split: Just roughly 1 in 4 (24%) feel the same, while 45% believe social media content skews both positive and negative in nature over time.

When asked to choose words that describe how they feel after scrolling social media for more than an hour, roughly one-third of Gen Z adults selected adverse phrases like “worried” (35%), “depressed” (30%) or “angry” (29%). These are smaller than the shares who said the same about positive descriptors like “happy,” “excited” or "interested,” but they are notable nonetheless. 

Still, Gen Z can’t seem to stop scrolling despite the complicated feelings they have about social media’s impact on their mood. Over half (53%) of Gen Z adults who use social media said they explicitly doomscroll, the highest share of any generation. Millennials were fairly close behind at 46%, but the behavior is decidedly not a pressing issue for most Gen Xers and baby boomers.

A large majority (71%) of U.S. adults believe doomscrolling stems from a lack of personal self-control, not from social media platforms’ making it too easy to endlessly scroll. This is quite the public relations feat, as features like infinite scroll and short-form video loops — which are known to be detrimental — are now central to the user experience on most every major platform.

However, the most digitally-savvy among us are somewhat less bought-in. Nearly 2 in 5 (38%) Gen Z adults believe that platforms are, in fact, to blame for doomscrolling behavior — and this figure is poised to rise as more attention is paid to the young cohort’s worsening mental health crisis.

Advocates to adversaries?

Ultimately, Gen Zers still tend to hold more favorable views of social media and technology companies than their older counterparts. But this data raises questions about whether prolonged negatively-tinged usage will cause the cohort to eventually sour on platforms as they mature into adulthood — or at least to push government regulation towards requiring more explicit messaging about healthy usage habits.

Taking a proactive approach on this front could be a prudent way for platforms to earn some bankable goodwill among Gen Zers, which will undoubtedly be needed in order to withstand yet another wave of legislation aimed at curbing social media’s influence.