Doomscrolling or doomsurfing is the act of spending an excessive amount of time watching short-form content or watching large quantities of user-generated content or news, particularly negative news, on the web and social media. The concept was coined around 2018, and became more widespread in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) observed that the pandemic was accompanied by widespread misleading information, conspiracy theories, and false reports, which it referred to as an "infodemic".

Surveys and studies suggest doomscrolling is predominant among youth. More specifically, research indicates that doomscrolling tends to be more common among males, individuals in younger age groups and those who actively follow political events. It can be considered a form of internet addiction disorder. In 2019, a study by the National Academy of Sciences found that doomscrolling can be linked to a decline in mental and physical health. Numerous reasons for doomscrolling have been cited, including negativity bias, fear of missing out, increased anxiety, and attempts at gaining control over uncertainty.

The practice of doomscrolling can be compared to an older phenomenon from the 1970s called the mean world syndrome, described as "the belief that the world is a more dangerous place to live in than it actually is as a result of long-term exposure to violence-related content on television". Studies show that seeing upsetting news leads people to seek out more information on the topic, creating a self-perpetuating cycle.

In common parlance, the word "doom" connotes darkness and evil. In the World Wide Web's infancy, "surfing" was a common verb used in reference to browsing the web; similarly, the word "scrolling" refers to sliding through online content. After three years of being on the Merriam-Webster "watching" list, "doomscrolling" was recognized as an official word in September 2023. Dictionary.com chose it as the top monthly trend in August 2020. The Macquarie Dictionary named doomscrolling as the 2020 Committee's Choice Word of the Year.

The term was first used in 2018, when it was coined by Ashik Siddique, now co-chair of Democratic Socialists of America. The term continued to gain traction in the early 2020s through events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the George Floyd protests, the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the storming of the U.S. Capitol in 2021, the Russian invasion of Ukraine since 2022, and the Gaza war which later expanded into the Middle Eastern crisis since 2023, all of which have been noted to have exacerbated the practice of doomscrolling. Doomscrolling became widespread among users of Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic and has also been discussed in relation to the climate crisis.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it is argued that mobile devices became central communication tools which were so significant that they were referred to as "the primary, and addictive, lifeline for society" during this period, including for news concerning "police brutality, misinformation and political anxieties". This consumption of news also reflected competing demands for timely updates and periodic disengagement since users faced the dilemma of needing information fast, but also sometimes avoiding it in order to personally manage the intake of such news.

A 2024 survey conducted by Morning Consult, concluded that approximately 31% of American adults doomscroll on a regular basis. This percentage is further exaggerated the younger the adults are, with 'millennials' (those born in the 1980s and early 1990s) at 46%, and 'Gen Z' (adults born in the late 1990s until the early 2010s) at 51%. Despite this, research has indicated that those who have initially claimed that they did not engage with the act of doomscrolling were later found to exhibit the behaviour of doomscrolling, which highlights a gap between the awareness of the term itself and the practice of it.

Infinite scrolling is a design approach which loads content continuously as the user scrolls down, thus eliminating the need for pagination. Consequently, this feature can exacerbate doomscrolling as it removes natural stopping points at which a user might pause. Research has also demonstrated that the tendency of social media platforms to amplify negative content may worsen this continuous scrolling behaviour, leading users to remain engaged with unfavourable news for extended durations. Doomscrolling has also been linked to platform level incentives where these digital news environments use features such as gamified interfaces and automated or algorithmic recommendation systems to keep audiences engaged and to prolong time spent on their services. The concept of infinite scrolling is sometimes attributed to Aza Raskin by the elimination of pagination of web pages, in favor of continuously loading content as the user scrolls down the page. Raskin later expressed regret at the invention, describing it as "one of the first products designed to not simply help a user, but to deliberately keep them online for as long as possible". Usability research suggests infinite scrolling can present an accessibility issue. The lack of stopping cues has been described as a pathway to both problematic smartphone use and problematic social media use.