Newsaholic

‘Doomscrolling’, the act of obsessively scanning social media in search of the latest disaster, websites and news feeds for bad news, has been part of the digital landscape since 2020, when it became the Macquarie Dictionary Committee’s Choice Word of the Year. Megan Herbert identifies the insecurity that drives the need to doomscroll, and the growing sense of helplessness as social media algorithms filter more distressing news through to users.