Doomscrolling Statistics: Prevalence, Sleep and Mental Health

Roughly 31% of American adults regularly doomscroll, with 51% of Gen Z and 46% of millennials caught in the same compulsive loop, according to a 2024 Morning Consult survey. The behavior has hardened into a measurable public-health pattern that links late-night phone use, news avoidance, and rising anxiety into a single feedback cycle.

Six years after the Oxford English Dictionary made “doomscrolling” a word of the year, the data has caught up with the slang. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine put a number on the bedtime version in February 2026. Reuters Institute tracked news avoidance to its joint-highest level on record. Researchers at Flinders University showed the dread crosses cultures. The numbers below cover prevalence, sleep, anxiety, generational gaps, workplace spillover, and recovery, with primary data from AASM, Reuters Institute, American Psychiatric Association, Harvard Health, Common Sense Media, and a Flinders-led cross-cultural study.

Key Takeaways

• Approximately 31% of U.S. adults doomscroll regularly, climbing to 51% for Gen Z and 46% for millennials, per a 2024 Morning Consult survey.
• More than one-third (38%) of U.S. adults say viewing news on a phone or tablet before bed makes their sleep slightly or significantly worse, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s February 2026 release.
• 40% of global respondents sometimes or often avoid the news, up from 29% in 2017, based on the Reuters Institute Digital News Report.
• 43% of U.S. adults feel more anxious than the prior year, with 70% anxious about current events, according to the American Psychiatric Association’s April 2024 poll of more than 2,200 adults.
• 800 university students in Iran and the United States showed that doomscrolling is associated with existential anxiety in both cultures, in a Flinders University study published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports.
• One-half (50%) of U.S. adults use a screen while in bed every day, and one-third (33%) do so most days or several days a week, according to the AASM February 2026 release.
• Over half of teens aged 11-17 receive 237 or more smartphone notifications per day, per Common Sense Media’s “Constant Companion” report.

Editor’s Choice

• AASM polled 2,007 U.S. adults via Atomik Research from June 5 to 13, 2025, with a margin of error of ±2 percentage points.
• Around 205 daily phone checks were logged on average for U.S. adults in 2024, equating to roughly once every five waking minutes, per Reviews.org.
• 54% of U.S. adults now access news through social or video networks, surpassing TV news at 50% and websites or apps at 48%, per Reuters Institute Digital News Report.
• About 49% of Australians and 55% of UK respondents say they regularly or sometimes doomscroll work-related apps outside of work hours, per an iSelect/3Gem August 2025 survey.
• Reuters Institute report covers 48 markets across six continents, the largest comparable cross-country news-behavior dataset.
• The 15-item Doomscrolling Scale was validated across three studies of 378, 419, and 460 participants in Applied Research in Quality of Life.
• About 46% of U.S. adults aged 18 to 24 say bedtime phone use is hurting their sleep, the highest of any adult age band tracked by AASM.

Recent Developments

• February 2026: American Academy of Sleep Medicine released the bedtime doomscrolling poll showing more than one-third (38%) of adults report worse sleep tied to pre-sleep news scrolling.
• May 2024: The American Psychiatric Association published its annual mental health poll showing 43% of U.S. adults felt more anxious than the prior year, and 70% felt anxious about current events.
• June 2025: Reuters Institute released its 14th Digital News Report covering 48 markets, recording the joint-highest news-avoidance reading at 40%.

Doomscrolling Prevalence Statistics

• Approximately 31% of American adults regularly doomscroll, per a 2024 Morning Consult survey covered by Wikipedia and Newsweek.
• 51% of Gen Z adults regularly doomscroll, the highest generational rate Morning Consult recorded.
• 46% of millennials regularly doomscroll, second only to Gen Z.
• 40% of global respondents sometimes or often avoid news, up from 29% in 2017, in the Reuters Institute Digital News Report.
• More than one-third (38%) of U.S. adults say bedtime news viewing on phones or tablets makes their sleep worse, per the AASM in February 2026.
• News avoidance reaches 63% in Bulgaria and 61% in both Turkey and Croatia, per the Reuters Institute Digital News Report.
• News avoidance bottoms out at 11% in Japan and 21% in Taiwan, based on the Digital News Report from Reuters Institute.
• 54% of U.S. adults now use social or video networks as a primary news source, per Newman’s Reuters Institute report.
• The Doomscrolling Scale by Satıcı and colleagues validated the behavior across three samples totaling 1,257 participants.
• 39% of news avoiders globally cite negative mood impact as the main reason, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report.

Sources: Morning Consult, Newman’s report for Reuters Institute, American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

The headline number to remember sits at 31%: roughly one in three U.S. adults doomscrolls on a regular basis. The slope steepens with age. Reuters Institute data shows the same downward trajectory in trust feeds the same reflex globally. The next section moves from prevalence to the most quantified consequence: sleep.

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Doomscrolling and Sleep Disruption

• More than one-third (38%) of U.S. adults say using a phone or tablet to view news before bed makes their sleep slightly or significantly worse, per AASM February 2026.
• About 46% of adults aged 18 to 24 report that doomscrolling is hurting their sleep, the highest age band, per AASM, February 2026.
• One-half (50%) of U.S. adults use a screen (TV, smartphone, computer, tablet, or e-reader) while in bed every day, per AASM February 2026.
• One-third (33%) of U.S. adults use a screen in bed most days or several days a week, per AASM February 2026.
• About 26% of U.S. adults prioritize screen time over the recommended nightly sleep amount, per AASM February 2026.
• AASM advises adults to get at least 7 hours of sleep per night and to avoid blue light from handheld electronics for 30 to 60 minutes before bedtime.
• A 2024 study in Computers in Human Behavior Reports of 800 adults linked doomscrolling to elevated existential anxiety, a trait that further degrades sleep quality.
• Atomik Research fieldwork that powers the AASM poll covered 2,007 U.S. adults from June 5 to 13, 2025, with a margin of error of ±2 percentage points.

Source: American Academy of Sleep Medicine, February 2026 release; Atomik Research fieldwork.

Survey finding: According to American Academy of Sleep Medicine, more than one-third (38%) of U.S. adults say bedtime phone or tablet news viewing worsens their sleep, with 46% of those aged 18 to 24 reporting the same. The poll, fielded by Atomik Research among 2,007 adults in June 2025, also found half of adults sleep next to an active screen every night.

Dr. James Rowley, AASM past president, framed the mechanism in the release: “Blue light, especially when combined with emotionally charged content, can trick our body clocks into a state of daytime-level alertness, disrupting the circadian rhythm.” The blue-light layer alone is well documented; combining it with cortisol-spiking content turns a sleep aid (the phone) into a stimulant. Our average screen time by age data shows the same compounding curve. The age curve sets up the next section, where generational and demographic gaps widen further.

Generational and Demographic Breakdown of Doomscrolling

• About 51% of Gen Z adults regularly doomscroll, the highest generational rate, per Morning Consult 2024.
• About 46% of millennials regularly doomscroll, per Morning Consult 2024.
• The U.S. adult overall rate sits at roughly 31% for regular doomscrolling, per Morning Consult 2024.
• An estimated 46% of U.S. adults aged 18 to 24 say bedtime scrolling is hurting their sleep, per AASM 2026.
• Around 54% of U.S. adults aged 18 to 24 use social or video networks as their main source of news, per Oxford’s Reuters Institute 2025 findings.
• Roughly 50% of U.S. adults aged 25 to 34 cite social or video networks as their primary news source, from the 14th Digital News Report.
• More than half of teens aged 11 to 17 receive at least 237 smartphone notifications per day, per Common Sense Media’s “Constant Companion” report (2023).
• Teens average over 100 phone checks per day, with the high end exceeding 6 hours of school-day screen time, according to the Constant Companion report.
• Studies referenced by Harvard Health note that women and trauma survivors are especially vulnerable to doomscrolling effects.

The pattern across these data points fits an editorial position drawn from our social media attention span statistics coverage: attention windows are contracting, and younger users are absorbing the steepest mental-health share of that contraction. The same age skew shows up in our Gen Z social media statistics tracking. The next H2 zooms out from individual behavior to the news ecosystem it feeds on.

News Avoidance and Doomscrolling Fatigue

• 40% of global respondents sometimes or often avoid the news, the joint-highest reading on record, based on the Reuters Institute Digital News Report.
• News avoidance reaches 63% in Bulgaria, 61% in Turkey, 61% in Croatia, and 60% in Greece, according to the Reuters Institute dataset.
• News avoidance bottoms at 21% in Taiwan and 11% in Japan, based on the Reuters Institute dataset.
• 39% of global news avoiders cite negative mood impact, 31% feeling overwhelmed, 30% too much conflict coverage, and 20% powerlessness, from the Digital News Report by Reuters Institute.
• 58% of global respondents are worried about distinguishing truth from falsehood online, rising to 73% in the United States and 73% in Africa, per Newman’s Reuters Institute report.
• Reuters Institute report covers 48 markets across six continents.
• 72% of U.S. adults consume news video weekly, up from 55% in 2021, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report.
• 40% of U.S. respondents say overall news trust is stable for the third consecutive year, per Reuters Institute findings.
• A Harvard Health survey citation notes news avoidance behavior shares the same psychological roots as doomscrolling: both stem from negativity bias and information overload.

News avoidance and doomscrolling sit at opposite ends of the same anxiety dial. People oscillate between hyper-consumption and total withdrawal because the underlying signal (uncertainty about a turbulent world) does not change. That oscillation shows up in the next dataset, anxiety surveillance.

Doomscrolling and Anxiety: Clinical Findings

• Some 43% of U.S. adults say they feel more anxious than the prior year, up from 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022, based on the American Psychiatric Association’s annual poll fielded April 9 to 11, 2024.
• About 70% of U.S. adults are anxious about current events, 77% about the economy, 73% about the 2024 U.S. election, and 69% about gun violence, per APA 2024.
• The APA poll surveyed more than 2,200 adults nationwide.
• A 2023 study in Applied Research in Quality of Life across approximately 1,200 adults found doomscrolling is linked to worse mental well-being and lower life satisfaction, per Harvard Health.
• An April 2024 study in Computers in Human Behavior found that workers who doomscroll during employment may become less engaged with their professional tasks, per Harvard Health.
• Dr. Aditi Nerurkar, who is at Harvard Medical School, described the loop in Harvard Health: “Stress stokes our primary urge to scroll. The more you scroll, the more you feel you need to.”
• The 15-item Doomscrolling Scale, validated by Satıcı and colleagues, was tested across 378, 419, and 460 participants and found that doomscrolling correlates with all Big Five personality traits and FOMO.
• The Doomscrolling Scale’s third study (n=460) found psychological distress mediates the link between doomscrolling and lower well-being, per Springer’s Applied Research in Quality of Life.
• Reviews.org logged 205 average daily phone checks per U.S. adult in 2024, a 42% year-over-year increase.

Sources: American Psychiatric Association, Harvard Health (citing Applied Research in Quality of Life and Computers in Human Behavior).

Research finding: According to American Psychiatric Association’s 2024 poll of more than 2,200 adults, 43% of U.S. adults felt more anxious than the prior year, with 70% anxious about current events. Harvard Health cites a 2023 Applied Research in Quality of Life study of around 1,200 adults that links doomscrolling to lower life satisfaction.

The clinical evidence aligns with the population polling: anxiety has trended up alongside doomscrolling. The pathway is not just behavioral. Our cybersecurity statistics coverage tracks a parallel rise in news-driven threat anxiety, suggesting the loop spans more than one news category. The next H2 covers an evidence layer that goes deeper, into how doomscrolling reshapes worldviews.

Doomscrolling and Existential Worry: The Cross-Cultural Evidence

• A Flinders University study of 800 university students in Iran and the United States found doomscrolling is associated with existential anxiety in both samples, published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports (Vol 15, Article 100438, July 18, 2024).
• The study identified doomscrolling as a significant predictor of misanthropy in the Iranian sample.
• Lead author Reza Shabahang led a team of 9 researchers across multiple institutions, with Flinders University publishing the news release.
• The study was framed as a world-first examination of doomscrolling from an existential perspective.
• Findings align with the Media-induced PTSD Hypothesis and the Shattered Assumption Theory of trauma response.
• An August 2024 Computers in Human Behavior Reports study of 800 adults found that doomscrolling correlates with heightened existential anxiety, per Harvard Health.
• Harvard Health’s Dr. Mollica notes women and trauma survivors are especially vulnerable, citing the cumulative-stress mechanism.
• Doomscrolling was selected by the Oxford English Dictionary as a Word of the Year in 2020, the same year Macquarie Dictionary named it Committee’s Choice Word of the Year.
• The term was coined in 2018 by journalist Ashik Siddique.
• Merriam-Webster formally recognized “doomscrolling” in September 2023, after roughly three years on its watch list.

Sources: Shabahang et al. in Computers in Human Behavior Reports, Flinders University, Oxford English Dictionary.

The cross-cultural finding undercuts a common Western framing that doomscrolling is a Silicon Valley export problem. The dread it produces does not depend on culture. It depends on exposure. The next section drills into the most measurable exposure metric: phone-checking frequency.

Phone-Checking Behavior and the Doomscroll Loop

• U.S. adults checked their phones an average of 205 times per day in 2024, a 42% year-over-year increase, per Reviews.org.
• That equals roughly once every 5 minutes during waking hours, per Reviews.org’s calculation.
• Phone checks dropped to about 186 per day in the 2025 reading, a 9% decline from 2024, per Reviews.org.
• The average American spent about 5 hours and 16 minutes per day on their phone in 2025, a 14% year-over-year increase, per Reviews.org.
• Millennials lead phone-pickup rates at roughly 324 per day or 20 per hour, per Reviews.org.
• More than half of teens aged 11 to 17 receive 237 or more notifications per day, per Common Sense Media.
• About 23% of teen notifications arrive during school hours, per Common Sense Media.
• TikTok logged the longest single-app duration for teens at roughly 2 hours per day, with the high end exceeding 7 hours, per Common Sense Media’s research.
• One-half (50%) of U.S. adults use a screen in bed every day, completing the bedtime variant of the loop, per AASM February 2026.

Sources: Reviews.org annual cell phone addiction survey, Common Sense Media “Constant Companion” report.

A device that gets checked every five minutes is engineered for compulsion, not communication. Our broader iPhone statistics tracking confirms the pattern is not Gen Z-specific. The mechanics carry into the workday, where doomscrolling has now bled past leisure boundaries. That is the next H2.

Workplace Doomscrolling and Productivity

• About 49% of Australian respondents say they regularly or sometimes doomscroll work-related apps outside work hours, per an iSelect/3Gem August 2025 survey of 500 Australians.
• About 55% of UK respondents say they check work-related platforms after work hours, per the iSelect/3Gem survey of 1,000 UK adults.
• Australian respondents aged 18 to 24 scroll work-related apps after hours at 72%, the highest age band, per iSelect/3Gem.
• UK respondents aged 25 to 34 check work apps after hours at 84%, the highest UK age band, per iSelect/3Gem.
• 43% of Australians and 39% of UK respondents spend most of their time on Facebook, X, and Instagram, per iSelect/3Gem.
• An April 2024 study in Computers in Human Behavior found that workers who doomscroll during employment may become less engaged with their professional tasks, per Harvard Health.
• About 40% of employed adults are worried about their job security, contributing to event-driven doomscrolling, according to the APA 2024 annual mental health poll.

Workplace doomscrolling shows that the behavior is not a leisure-only phenomenon. It is a continuity of attention capture across what used to be off-hours. Our Instagram followers statistics coverage shows the related pattern of always-on professional platform engagement spreading across countries. Platform incentives drive that continuity, which the next H2 unpacks.

Social Platforms Driving Doomscrolling

• Facebook reaches 36% of global respondents weekly for news, the highest of any platform, per Reuters Institute Digital News Report.
• YouTube reaches 30%, Instagram 19%, WhatsApp 19%, TikTok 16%, and X (formerly Twitter) 12% of global respondents weekly for news, in the Reuters Institute dataset.
• 72% of U.S. respondents consume news video weekly, up from 55% in 2021, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report.
• TikTok was the longest-duration app for teens aged 11 to 17 at roughly 2 hours per day, on average, per Common Sense Media.

Facebook still dominates total reach, but TikTok is the fastest-growing news vector and the most regulated for design choices that promote endless scrolling. The platform-level dynamics line up with our TikTok vs Instagram statistics tracking on engagement intensity. Younger audiences sit at the center of that pressure, which sets up the next H2.

Teen and Adolescent Doomscrolling Patterns

• Over half of teens aged 11 to 17 receive 237 or more smartphone notifications per day, per Common Sense Media’s “Constant Companion” report (September 2023).
• About 23% of those notifications arrive during school hours, per Common Sense Media.
• Teens checked their phones an average of more than 100 times per day, per Common Sense Media.
• Median teen school-day phone use was 43 minutes, with the high end exceeding 6 hours, from the Constant Companion report.
• TikTok was the longest-duration app for teens at almost 2 hours per day average, with some users exceeding 7 hours, per Common Sense Media (2023).
• Common Sense Media’s sample covered approximately 200 participants aged 11 to 17 using Android phones.
• Over two-thirds of Common Sense Media participants reported sometimes or often finding it difficult to stop using technology.

Source: Common Sense Media “Constant Companion” report.

Teens carry a near-permanent connection to algorithmic feeds, with notification volume that exceeds total waking hours when split evenly. Cross-domain context: our social media screen time tracking confirms it carries into total daily exposure.

Doomscrolling Recovery and Intervention Outcomes

• American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that adults avoid blue light from handheld electronics for 30 to 60 minutes before bedtime.
• AASM also recommends placing phones in a separate room overnight and substituting reading, journaling, or a warm shower for pre-sleep scrolling.

Sources: American Academy of Sleep Medicine; Satıcı et al. in Applied Research in Quality of Life.

Key data point: American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends a 30-to-60-minute blue-light buffer before bedtime to protect circadian rhythm and keeping phones outside the bedroom overnight.

The intervention evidence base converges on a consistent set of levers: pre-sleep buffers, screening tools, and removing the device from the bedroom. The next H2 sizes the broader cost picture.

The Economic and Public Health Cost of Doomscrolling

• 43% of U.S. adults felt more anxious than the prior year in 2024, the highest reading in three consecutive APA polls.
• 77% of U.S. adults are anxious about the economy, 73% about the 2024 election, and 69% about gun violence, per APA 2024.
• About 40% of employed U.S. adults are worried about job security, according to the APA 2024 annual mental health poll.
• The 2024 Computers in Human Behavior study cited by Harvard Health found that doomscrolling at work is linked to lower professional engagement, an indirect productivity drag.
• More than one-third (38%) of U.S. adults sleep worse from bedtime news scrolling, per AASM February 2026; AASM links insufficient sleep to elevated cardiovascular and metabolic risk.
• 40% of global respondents avoid news, a behavior that reduces civic information uptake and amplifies misinformation susceptibility, based on the Reuters Institute Digital News Report.
• 58% of global respondents are worried about distinguishing truth from falsehood online, rising to 73% in the U.S., according to the Reuters Institute dataset.

Sources: American Psychiatric Association polls, AASM, Reuters Institute Digital News Report, Reviews.org annual phone-usage survey.

The cost is distributed across mental health, sleep, civic engagement, and labor markets. None of those individually rises to a national emergency line, but cumulatively they describe a steady, tax-like drag. Comparable patterns turn up in our Character AI statistics tracking, where attention capture by AI chatbot feeds mirrors the social-feed compulsion mechanism. The closing data H2 looks at where the regulatory and platform-design pressure is heading.

The Future of Doomscrolling: Regulatory and Algorithmic Pressure

• 18% of respondents pay for digital news in a basket of 20 richer countries, stable year over year, per Newman’s Reuters Institute report.
• 40% of Reuters Institute respondents say overall trust in news is stable for the third consecutive year, providing a floor for paid models that compete with infinite-scroll feeds.
• American Academy of Sleep Medicine has used the February 2026 release to frame bedtime doomscrolling as a circadian-health issue, opening space for clinical guidelines.
• The Doomscrolling Scale’s adoption across cultures (Iran, U.S.) suggests the construct is becoming a standard psychometric tool.

The trajectory of clinical recognition and platform-design scrutiny implies that doomscrolling will move from cultural shorthand to actively measured behavior over the next two to three years. The intervention research is maturing fast enough to feed into platform policy.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Conclusion

Doomscrolling has moved from pandemic-era slang to a measured public-health pattern. Approximately 31% of U.S. adults are caught in the loop, more than one-third (38%) are losing sleep over the bedtime variant, and 40% globally have started avoiding the news altogether, per Morning Consult, AASM, and Reuters Institute data. The mental-health surveillance from the American Psychiatric Association adds the consequence layer: 43% of U.S. adults are more anxious year over year, with 70% anxious about current events.

The cross-cultural Flinders study of 800 Iranian and American students confirms that dread is not a Western screen problem. It is an exposure problem. The audience that benefits most is the youngest one: Gen Z, where prevalence sits at 51%, and bedtime sleep loss runs highest. The data implies attention itself, the underlying currency of the contracting digital window, is what the next round of regulation, design, and clinical practice has to defend.