How to Stop Doomscrolling
By Thomas Shellberg, Founder of emberglowUpdated ~12 min read
Three things stopped it for me. Charge the phone outside the bedroom, so the 1 a.m. scroll has to start with getting out of bed. Put something in front of the feed, a pause or a limit, so opening it is a decision rather than a reflex. And give the time you get back a job, because an empty hour goes straight back to the phone. Everything below is the long version of those three. I am Thomas, I doomscrolled for years, mostly at night, and I ended up building emberglow, an app that rewards you for putting the phone down. This guide is not about that app. It is about what worked, in order of how much effort it takes.
Last updated 5 September 2026.
Why you doomscroll (it is not a willpower problem)
Doomscrolling is the habit of scrolling through bad news or an endless feed long past the point where it is doing you any good, usually late at night, usually feeling worse the longer you go. If you do it, you have probably told yourself it is a discipline problem. It is not. Four things are going on, and none of them is a character flaw.
The feed is a slot machine. Every pull refreshes the page and you do not know what you will get. Sometimes it is nothing, sometimes it is something that makes you feel something. That pattern, a reward that arrives unpredictably, is the single most effective way known to keep an animal pressing a lever. Casinos are built on it. So is the pull-to-refresh gesture. Your brain is not weak for responding to it. It is working exactly as designed.
Bad news feels like safety. When the world feels uncertain, reading about the threat feels like doing something about it. It is not, but it feels that way, and the feeling is enough to keep you reading. That is why doomscrolling spikes during elections, wars and pandemics, and why the scroll gets worse the more anxious you already are. Anxiety looks for information. The feed has an infinite supply.
The evening slump. By 10 p.m. the part of your brain that makes good decisions is tired. That is not a metaphor; self-control gets worse across the day. The phone is on the nightstand, it needs no decision to pick up, and the easiest thing wins. This is why most people who doomscroll do it at night and almost nobody does it at 9 a.m.
It is a way to not feel something. Stress, loneliness, a hard conversation you are avoiding, the day you did not get done. Scrolling is a low-cost way to put that off. It works, for a while, which is why it is so hard to stop. The feed is not the problem. The feed is the exit.
Put those together and you get the shape of the fix. Make the phone harder to reach at the moment your brain is weakest. Make opening the feed a decision. Give the stress somewhere else to go.
What does not work
I tried all of these. Some of them more than once.
Deleting the app and reinstalling it. This works for about four days. Then something happens, you reinstall to check, and you are back with the added shame of having failed. The app is one tap away in the store. Deleting it changes nothing about the habit.
Screen time limits you can dismiss. The built-in limits on iPhone and Android both let you tap “ignore for today” or “fifteen more minutes”. At 1 a.m. you will tap it. I tapped it every night for months, and the only thing the limit taught me was how to dismiss it without looking.
Shame. Telling yourself you are pathetic for scrolling does not make you scroll less. It makes you feel worse, and feeling worse is what the scroll is for. Every approach that worked for me was one that treated the slip as a slip and not as evidence about who I am.
Willpower alone. Deciding to stop is not a plan. A plan changes what is in reach at the moment you are weakest.
What works, in order of effort
Nine things. The first ones take five minutes and change your environment. The later ones take a week or two and change what you do with the time. I did every one of these, and they held in roughly this order.
1. Turn off every notification from a feed
Effortfive minutes, once.
Why it works: A notification is the feed reaching out to you. Without it, you have to go to the feed, and that is a decision you can notice.
TonightSettings, notifications, and switch off everything from social and news apps. Not “quiet” or “summarised”. Off. Messages from actual people can stay.
2. Switch the screen to grayscale
Efforttwo minutes, plus a week of it looking odd.
Why it works: The feed is designed in colour. Red badges, bright thumbnails, video. In black and white it looks like a spreadsheet, and a spreadsheet is much easier to close. This one surprised me with how well it held.
TonightOn iPhone it is under Accessibility, Display, Colour Filters. On Android it is in Digital Wellbeing, Bedtime mode, or under Accessibility depending on the phone. Set a shortcut so you can flip it on at 9 p.m.
3. Move the feed apps off the home screen
Effortfive minutes.
Why it works: Most opens are reflex, the thumb going where it always goes. If the app is not there, the reflex misfires and you get a half second to notice. Half a second is often enough.
TonightDrag every feed app into a folder on the last page, or remove it from the home screen entirely and use search when you actually want it. Put a book app or a notes app where Instagram was.
4. Charge the phone outside the bedroom
Effortone trip to buy a cheap alarm clock.
Why it works: This is the one that mattered most for me, because night is when the habit lives. If the phone is in the kitchen, the 1 a.m. scroll has to start with getting out of a warm bed, and most nights that is enough to stop it before it starts. The morning scroll dies too, because the phone is not the first thing you touch.
TonightBuy an alarm clock. Put the charger in the kitchen. Do not negotiate with yourself about “just tonight”.
5. Decide in advance what you will do instead
Effortten minutes of thinking, then a small habit.
Why it works: Scrolling fills a gap. If you take the phone away and leave the gap, the gap wins, and you end up scrolling on the laptop instead. The replacement has to be chosen before the moment, because at 11 p.m. you are not going to think of one.
TonightPick one thing for the evening and one for the morning. Mine were a paperback on the nightstand and a walk before coffee. It does not have to be improving. It has to be there, physically, where the phone used to be.
6. Keep the first ten minutes of the morning phone-free
Efforta small fight every morning for two weeks, then none.
Why it works: The first thing you look at sets the tone for the day. If it is the feed, you have handed the morning to whoever is angriest online. Ten minutes is short enough to manage and long enough for you to be awake before you decide anything.
TonightPhone stays in the kitchen until you have done one thing: made coffee, showered, stepped outside. Pair it with tactic four and it takes care of itself.
7. Set a last scroll time and put an alarm on it
Effortthirty seconds, and then honouring it.
Why it works: The problem with the evening scroll is that it has no end. An alarm at 10 p.m. that says “last one” is a stop sign where there was none. You will still scroll past it sometimes. You will scroll past it less than you did with nothing there.
TonightSet a recurring alarm and label it. Mine said “kitchen”, because that was where the phone was going.
8. Put a pause in front of the feed
Effortan evening of setup.
Why it works: A friction app makes you wait a few seconds, take a breath, or answer a question before the feed opens. That turns a reflex into a choice, and a surprising number of times you choose not to. ScreenZen does this for free on iPhone and Android. one sec does it for free on one app. Neither blocks you. They just make you decide.
TonightInstall ScreenZen, add your two worst apps, set a pause and a daily open limit. Then leave it alone for a week before you fiddle with it.
9. Give the time you got back a reward
Efforta week or two to find out whether it works for you.
Why it works: Everything above takes something away. This one adds something. The idea is to have a thing that only moves forward while the phone is down, so that the time away from the feed is not empty. For some people that is a hobby, a person, a project. For me it ended up being a story. I built emberglow, a small fantasy RPG where your hero only makes progress while your phone is locked and the next chapter waits for you when you come back. It is the reward side of this whole list, and it only works if you like stories. The point is not the app. The point is that the time off the phone has to be worth something to you, or the phone comes back.
TonightPick the reward. If it is an app, install it and do one session. If it is a person, text them and make a plan.
The phone addiction question
People ask whether doomscrolling means they have a phone addiction, and whether “how to stop phone addiction” is a different question from this one. Mostly it is the same question. Phone addiction is not a formal diagnosis, and doctors argue about whether the word fits. What matters is not the label but the shape: do you use the phone more than you want to, does it get in the way of sleep, work or people, and have you tried to cut down and failed. If yes to all three, the tactics above are where I would start, because they change the environment rather than asking you to be stronger.
Talk to a professional if the scrolling is a symptom of something bigger. If you are scrolling to escape a low mood that has lasted weeks, if the anxiety the feed feeds is there when the phone is off too, or if you have stopped doing things you used to care about, that is not a phone problem and no app will fix it. A GP or a therapist is the right first call. The Mental Health Foundation has a plain guide to doomscrolling and news consumption, and the Cleveland Clinic explains the health side without selling anything. I am not a clinician. I am someone who scrolled too much and found a way out, and I would rather say that clearly than pretend otherwise.
Apps that help (and what they cost)
Apps are tactic eight and nine, not the whole answer. These are the five I would consider, with what is free and what costs money, checked against each app's official page on 5 September 2026.
| App | What it does | Free tier | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ScreenZen | A pause and a daily limit before the feed opens | Everything, donation supported | $0 | The friction tactic, for free |
| one sec | A breath and a question before an app opens | The pause on one app, no ads | Pro €3.99 a month, €14.99 a year, €99.99 once | Noticing the reflex |
| Opal | Blocks apps on a schedule | One rule, basic timers, blocking | Pro $19.99 a month, $99.99 a year, $399 once | A hard bedtime block, if you can afford it |
| Brick | A physical tile that locks chosen apps until you tap it again | The app is free, the tile is not | $59 once | A block you cannot dismiss at 1 a.m. |
| emberglow | A story that only advances while your phone is locked | Act one of the story, custom quests, no ads | emberglow premium $3.99 a month, $29.99 a year, $79.99 once | The reward tactic, if you like stories |
emberglow is mine, so weigh that. Act one is free on iPhone and Android. If you want the full list of what is free in this category, I keep a post on that. If you want the story of why I built an app instead of using Opal, Forest or one sec, it is here. And if you have ADHD, the scroll has a different shape and this post is closer to it.
Try emberglow
Act one of the story is free on iOS and Android, with no ads.
Frequently asked questions
Why do I doomscroll at night?
Because night is when three things line up: your self-control is at its lowest after a full day, the phone is within reach of the bed, and the day's stress has nowhere else to go. The feed offers an easy way to put off sleep and put off feeling. Moving the charger out of the bedroom breaks the middle link, and that is the single change most people find works first.
Is doomscrolling a sign of anxiety?
It can be. Anxiety looks for information about threats, and the feed has an endless supply, so anxious people tend to scroll more and feel worse after. Scrolling does not cause anxiety on its own, but the two feed each other. If the worry is there when the phone is off too, or has lasted weeks, that is worth raising with a GP or therapist rather than treating as a phone problem.
What app stops doomscrolling?
No app stops it on its own, but two kinds help. A friction app like ScreenZen or one sec puts a pause in front of the feed so opening it becomes a decision. A reward app like emberglow gives the time away from the phone something to be for. Blockers like Opal and Brick work for people who need a hard stop at bedtime. ScreenZen is free, so start there.
How do I stop doomscrolling before bed?
Charge the phone in another room and buy an alarm clock. Set a "last scroll" alarm an hour before bed. Put a paperback or something else you chose in advance where the phone used to be. Switch the screen to grayscale in the evening. Those four together handled the bedtime scroll for me within about two weeks.
Is doomscrolling an addiction?
Doctors disagree about the word, and it is not a formal diagnosis. The useful test is not the label but whether you use the phone more than you want to, whether it gets in the way of sleep or people, and whether you have tried to cut down and could not. If all three are true, treat it seriously, change the environment first, and talk to a professional if it is tangled up with a low mood or anxiety.
What can I do instead of scrolling?
Decide before the moment, not during it. Pick one thing for the evening and one for the morning and put it physically where the phone was: a book on the nightstand, shoes by the door, a notebook on the kitchen table. It does not have to be improving. It has to be already there, because at 11 p.m. you will not think of anything.
How long does it take to break the habit?
The environment changes work the first night. The habit of reaching for the phone takes longer to fade, somewhere between two and six weeks for most people I have talked to, and it never quite goes to zero. You will slip. The slip is not the failure. Going back to the plan the next night is the whole thing.
Does grayscale help?
Yes, more than it sounds like it should. The feed is built in colour, and in black and white it loses most of its pull. It is a small change and it is free, so it is worth a week. Set a shortcut so you can flip it on in the evening and off in the morning.
Sources and updates
The mechanism section draws on the Cleveland Clinic's explainer on doomscrolling and the Mental Health Foundation's guide to doomscrolling and news consumption, both read on 5 September 2026. The tactics are my own, tested on myself over several years and on the people who write to me about emberglow. App prices come from competitor-facts-2026-09.md, a fact sheet I keep with the official page and check date for every app, checked 5 September 2026.
I refresh this guide every quarter. If something here is wrong or out of date, the contact page reaches me.
Last updated: September 5, 2026. Author: Thomas Shellberg, Founder, emberglow.
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