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This is Part 2 of a series on breaking free from doomscrolling. Read Part 1 here.
Co-authored by Alicia Del Prado and Bette Maisel
Back in 2011, Apple’s iPhone ads plastered billboards with glossy images of people traveling, celebrating milestones. The message was seductive: This device is your ticket to belonging and intimacy.
And in many ways, those ads weren’t wrong. Smartphones made it easier to FaceTime across continents and capture memories—but they also planted a subtle belief: that closeness itself lived inside the device.
When Cutting Back Feels Both Liberating and Hard
At first, scaling back can bring enormous relief. Colors sharpen, conversations deepen, creativity returns.
But alongside relief can also be a pull…an urge to scroll in your most vulnerable spaces: late at night, with your loved ones, even at stoplights. Sometimes you might find you are able to resist. Other times, you may re-download apps and binge.
Addiction psychology helps explain why. Research shows that when people try to quit substances, they often relapse multiple times, and each return tends to be heavier.
The same brain circuits are at play with our phones. Every swipe carries the chance of something new, and it’s that unpredictability that makes dopamine loops so powerful.
When Science Lags Behind Culture
Many researchers avoid calling smartphone overuse an addiction, preferring softer terms like “problematic use.” But history shows this hesitation isn’t new. Cocaine was once sold in Coca-Cola as harmless until culture named it addictive and science caught up. Culture moves first; research and policy follow.
And not everyone is targeted equally. Communities already carrying the heaviest burdens, including communities of color, are hit with the most aggressive marketing. If you are a trauma survivor, living with chronic stress, or part of a community navigating inequities, you are exactly the customer social media and tech industries are aiming for. This targeting is by design, not a personal failing.
That’s why telling the truth about our experience matters. Naming the pull, sharing the struggle, admitting the costs—all of it chips away at the silence. Even something as small as passing this post to a friend helps shift culture. Together, we can rewrite the narrative so that research and policy catch up to what we already know: this isn’t just “problematic use.” It’s a global mental health issue with ripple effects on our bodies, families, and communities.
And while culture shifts collectively, change also begins in the smallest of places: within us. That’s where the toolkit continues.
Step 2: Naming Our Feelings
Awareness is powerful, but it’s only the beginning. Step 2 is about naming the feelings that drive us to scroll. (And if you’re wondering about Step 1, it was “Naming the Problem,” Part 1 of this series.)
Neuroscience shows that labeling emotions quiets the brain’s alarm system and activates regions that help us regulate and choose more intentionally. Naming what we feel creates a pause between urge and action—a small but critical opening where change can happen.
Tools to Try
- Feelings wheel: Move beyond “good” or “bad” into precise words. You can find helpful emotion wheels online.
- Hand-on-chest check-in: Notice sensations like tightness or heaviness and link them to emotions. For example, while doomscrolling the news, you might feel your shoulders tense and chest heavy—pointing to anxiety or sadness.
- Mini journaling bursts: Jot down one or two lines about what just happened and how you feel.
Like any skill, this gets easier with practice. The more often we pause to name our feelings, the more chances we have to catch urges and become more intentional with our choices.
Step 3: Soothing Instead of Scrolling
Once the feeling is named, Step 3 is to soothe the emotion directly. Negative emotions may signal unmet needs, for example, anger pointing to fairness, sadness to comfort, anxiety to safety. That’s why the order matters: first name the feeling, then soothe it, then ask what it’s pointing to, and finally meet that need—whether through rest, connection, or reassurance.
- One tool to soothe the feeling:
Play the tape forward: Imagine how you’ll feel afterward if you give in. Example: It’s midnight and you want to scroll. You picture tomorrow morning—the regret, the exhaustion—and that glimpse helps you choose differently, maybe journaling a line or texting a friend for tomorrow instead.
- One tool to ride out the urge:
Urge surfing: Picture the craving like a wave—rising, cresting, and falling. Instead of fighting it, breathe and watch it pass. Example: You feel lonely at night and reach for your phone. Instead of scrolling, you ride the wave for a few minutes until the intensity fades, then reach for what you really need—sleep or connection.
These tools aren’t about perfection. They’re about creating small spaces of freedom—moments where we pause and respond with intention instead of compulsion.
An Experiment to Try
This week, try one tool from each step. Afterward, reflect: Did naming your feelings shift the intensity of the urge? Did surfing the urges change your sense of control? The goal isn’t success or failure. It’s practice. Each attempt strengthens the muscle of awareness and choice.
Looking Ahead
Step 1 was naming the problem again and again. Steps 2 and 3 are about cultivating emotional identification and soothing the emotions that fuel our scrolling. In Part 3 of this series, we’ll explore the final steps of the toolkit: reshaping your environment and routines, and building a new life. If glossy ads promise that connection lives inside the device, the last steps are about reclaiming connection in the world outside of it.
Therapist Bette Maisel specializes in addiction, trauma, and neurodivergence, and has worked in hospitals, community mental health, higher education, and private practice.
