The Neuroscience Behind Doomscrolling

11-25-2025

How many hours do you spend on your phone each day? How many of those hours are spent on social media? Many people feel like they have no time in the day to do the necessary tasks such as schoolwork, yet they spend hours scrolling on TikTok or Instagram. What makes it so hard to put down your phone? What keeps you coming back?

Social media is seen as addictive. It takes no real brain power to consume, it is easily accessible, and its short-form and endless format keeps you hooked. Whenever you become disinterested, you scroll to the next mindless video. This constant over-stimulation changes your brain chemistry, causing you to LITERALLY become addicted to doomscrolling. 

Dopamine is the neurotransmitter in your brain that is related to feelings of reward, and it is also associated with addiction. Humans are a social species, we are wired to make connections, and our brain recognizes that. When you make a social connection with someone, your brain releases dopamine, which makes you want to make more connections with people. 

Social media has made human connection more accessible than ever. This can be positive, as humans crave social interaction. However, everything is only good in moderation. When you have endless amounts of interaction at the tip of your fingers, your brain releases a large amount of dopamine — all at once. Large amounts of dopamine are also released when consuming drugs, alcohol, or engaging in gambling. The feeling gets you hooked, and keeps you scrolling.

Social media usage also appeals to your brain’s reward center by keeping you engaged. Likes, comments, and reposts act as rewards that keep you coming back. When you anticipate a reward, which is a notification in this case, you compulsively check for it. This alters your brain’s mesolimbic, mesocortical, and nigrostriatal pathways, which are associated with addiction, cognition, and stimuli. Constant stimulation causes your brain to go through “withdrawal” from not checking your phone for a prolonged period of time because your brain releases cortisol, a stress hormone. 

Phone addiction is real. The neuroscience behind it mimics that behind substance and behavioral addiction. In a world where phones are so integrated into our everyday lives, it can feel impossible to overcome. To break the dopamine cycle that doomscrolling causes, you can engage in hobbies that involve delayed gratification, build your attention span, and involve low amounts of stimulation.

Here are a couple of resources if you want to read more, there are so many emerging studies on doomscrolling and how it affects your brain.

https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2021/10/addictive-potential-of-social-media-explained.html

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11804976/