What is Doomscrolling?: A Guide for Parents and Teachers

Louise Petty

September 25, 2026

5 min read

Doomscrolling is the habit of repeatedly scrolling through online content, often without a clear purpose. While spending time online is a normal part of many children and young people’s lives, prolonged or unhelpful scrolling can affect their wellbeing and expose them to online harms. Parents, teachers and other adults involved in safeguarding should therefore understand what doomscrolling looks like, why it can be harmful and what they can do to help children develop healthier online habits.

child doomscrolling on phone in bed instead of sleeping

What is Doomscrolling?

Doomscrolling describes repeatedly scrolling through social media, news feeds or other online content for long periods, particularly when the content is negative, distressing or worrying. A child might intend to watch a few videos before bed, but then continue scrolling for another hour, moving from one piece of content to the next without really choosing what they are watching.

Doomscrolling isn’t a clinical diagnosis but is a term used to describe a pattern of online behaviour. It can happen on social media platforms, video-sharing sites, news websites, forums and any other services that use features such as infinite scrolling, autoplay and personalised recommendations.

There’s also growing awareness of the term ‘brainrot’, particularly among young people, which is informal internet slang often used to describe spending a lot of time consuming repetitive, low-value or highly engaging online content. It can sometimes be used jokingly, so adults should avoid assuming that a child using the term has a problem.

Doomscrolling and time online can be hard for parents and teachers to control, and there’s no single amount of screen time that’s appropriate for every child. Instead, it’s more useful to consider what a child is doing online and whether their screen use, including doomscrolling, is replacing sleep, physical activity, social interaction or other activities and therefore affecting their relationships, schoolwork and wellbeing.

Dangers of Doomscrolling

Doomscrolling doesn’t automatically mean that a child will experience harm, but spending long periods consuming online content can increase their exposure to harmful material and make it harder for them to switch off. Potential dangers of doomscrolling include:

Poor sleep – scrolling late into the evening can delay bedtime and make it harder for children to switch off from stimulating or upsetting content.
Impact on mental wellbeing – repeated exposure to distressing, frightening or negative content may contribute to feelings such as worry, sadness or anxiety.
Cyberbullying – children may encounter cyberbullying, harassment or abusive comments while scrolling or through interactions with other users.
Harmful body image messages – social media can expose children to unrealistic images, extreme dieting content and negative messages about appearance.
Self-harm and suicide content – personalised feeds can expose children to content relating to self-harm, suicide and eating disorders.
Violent or abusive content – children may encounter graphic violence, abuse, hateful material or content promoting dangerous behaviour.
Radicalisation and extremism – repeated exposure to extremist material or communities can contribute to radicalisation, extremism and the normalisation of harmful ideas. To learn more about radicalisation and extremism in the UK and gain a nuanced understanding of how a vulnerable person could be drawn into extremist thought, find more information in our Prevent Duty Training.
Misogynistic and racist content – children can encounter content that promotes hatred or discrimination, including misogynistic, racist or other hateful material.
AI-generated abuse – children may encounter deepfakes and other AI-generated abuse or sexual content, and may even be encouraged to create or share it.
Reduced time for other activities – excessive scrolling can take time away from sleep, exercise, hobbies, family life, friendships and schoolwork.

One reason doomscrolling can be particularly concerning is that children do not necessarily have to search for harmful material themselves. Recommendation algorithms can learn from what someone watches, searches for, likes or interacts with and use this information to suggest more content. Research has found that:

University College London found that, in an experimental study using simulated teenage boys’ TikTok accounts, the proportion of recommended videos containing misogynistic content increased fourfold over five days, from 13% to 56%. The researchers also found that harmful ideas could be presented in humorous or entertaining formats.
A study by 5Rights Foundation reported that simulated child accounts on platforms including TikTok, Instagram and Facebook were exposed to content relating to eating disorders, self-harm, suicide, sexualised imagery and extreme dieting within hours.
More recent 2026 research also found that simulated child accounts on TikTok, Instagram and X were directed towards violent, sexualised and emotionally harmful material within a short period of use.

Doomscrolling Examples

Doomscrolling can look different depending on a child’s age, interests and the platforms they use. It’s not always obvious that a child is consuming harmful material, particularly because much of it can appear alongside ordinary entertainment.

The important point is that doomscrolling is not necessarily passive. It may be that a young person is mindlessly scrolling, deliberately searching for something or doing a mixture of both. Understanding what they are actually doing online is more useful than simply counting the number of hours they spend on a device.

For example, a child or young person might:

Watch short-form videos on TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts for an extended period without intending to.
Keep refreshing a social media feed to find out the latest news about a distressing event.
Start by watching harmless videos about fitness, relationships, gaming or masculinity and gradually receive increasingly extreme recommendations.
Repeatedly watch upsetting news reports, videos or arguments because they feel compelled to find out what happens next.
Search for content about mental health, body image or self-harm and then continue following related recommendations.
Watch videos containing racist, misogynistic or extremist ideas and gradually begin interacting with similar accounts or communities.
Scroll through comments as well as videos, becoming involved in arguments or reading increasingly hostile responses.
Move between several apps, such as TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat or Reddit, continuing to consume similar content.
Use social media late at night and continue scrolling despite being tired or knowing they should go to sleep.
Deliberately search for upsetting or harmful material rather than simply encountering it through recommendations.

Want to Learn More?

If you work with children our Child Mental Health Training will help you recognise when a child may be struggling, understand common mental health issues and learn how to support their wellbeing in a positive way.

How to Stop Doomscrolling

There’s no single solution to doomscrolling. Instead, children need support to understand how online platforms work, recognise when scrolling is becoming unhelpful and know how to develop healthier habits around technology.

Regular conversations about online activity can make it easier for children to tell an adult when something has upset or worried them. Avoid immediately taking away a device or reacting angrily if they disclose something concerning, as this can make them less likely to come to you in future. Try asking open questions such as:

What sort of things have you been seeing on your feed recently?
How do you feel after spending time on that app?
Have you seen anything that made you feel uncomfortable or worried?
Do you ever find yourself scrolling for longer than you meant to?
Do you know why the app is showing you certain videos?

Setting clear boundaries that are appropriate for the child’s age and circumstances can help manage doomscrolling. The aim shouldn’t be to reduce the number of minutes a child spends on a screen, but instead to recognise what they’re doing online and how they feel afterwards. Boundaries might include:

Having device-free periods during meals or family time.
Keeping phones and tablets out of bedrooms at night.
Agreeing a time to stop using social media before bed.
Turning off unnecessary notifications.
Using built-in parental controls and screen-time settings where appropriate.
Encouraging a balance between online activities, sleep, exercise, hobbies and time with other people.
Reviewing the rules as children get older and become more independent.

child scrolling on phone at the dinner table instead of eating food

Explaining how algorithms work can be useful as children may not realise that their feed is personalised. Explain that watching, liking, sharing or searching for certain content can influence what an app recommends next. Encourage children to:

Scroll past content they do not want to see rather than interacting with it.
Use ‘not interested’ or similar controls where available.
Unfollow or mute accounts that regularly make them feel upset.
Report harmful content.
Take a break from an app if they notice that it is repeatedly showing them upsetting material.
Check information before believing or sharing it.

Internet safety should be an ongoing conversation rather than a one-off lesson. Children should know that they can come across harmful or misleading content online and understand what to do when this happens. Talk to them about:

Keeping personal information private.
Using appropriate privacy and safety settings.
Recognising scams and suspicious accounts.
Being careful about who they communicate with online.
Thinking before sharing photos, videos or personal information.
Reporting harmful content and blocking accounts where appropriate.
Telling a trusted adult if something online makes them feel unsafe.

Teachers may notice changes in a child’s behaviour, relationships, attendance or engagement that could indicate they are struggling with something online. In England, Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) states that staff should understand different types of abuse, neglect and exploitation, including online harms, and act on safeguarding concerns without delay. Schools can support children by:

Teaching online safety as part of a whole-school safeguarding approach.
Giving children opportunities to discuss social media, algorithms and online harms.
Making sure students know who they can speak to if something online concerns them.
Working with parents and carers where appropriate.
Following the school’s safeguarding and child protection procedures when a concern is identified.
Reporting safeguarding concerns to the designated safeguarding lead (DSL) or deputy without delay.

Safeguarding must always be a priority in schools, so if a child is regularly being exposed to harmful content, is deliberately seeking it out or appears to be affected by what they are seeing, the priority should be understanding why this is happening and providing appropriate support. Doomscrolling may be a sign that a child is struggling with something else, rather than simply be a problem with screen time.

Children can’t always control what appears on their social media feeds, but adults can help them understand how online platforms work and recognise when scrolling is becoming harmful. Regular conversations, sensible boundaries and a strong safeguarding approach can all help children stay safer online and prevent doomscrolling from causing irreversible damage.