As the missiles crossed the Persian Gulf this weekend and explosions were reported throughout the region, millions of people do the same thing: They pick up their phones. Within minutes, social media feeds were filled with videos, breaking news alerts, and speculation about what would happen next.

The strikes followed the US-Israel attack inside Iran earlier in the week, causing a wave of retaliatory missile launching and air defense interceptions in several Gulf states.

Moments like these are when social media comes in handy doomscrolling—the compulsive consumption of bad news delivered through endless updates, alerts, and algorithmically amplified crises. A quick check for information will quickly turn up a stream of war updates, political instabilitycyberattacks, and frequent crisis coverage.

In the days since the first strikes, that stream has intensified. Videos of missile interceptions, airspace closures, and cyber incidents (as well as lots of misinformation) circulates online within minutes of each new development. With confirmed information slowly emerging but updates coming regularly, many users find themselves refreshing feeds over and over again, trying to piece together events in real time.

What feels like staying informed can quickly become a feedback loop between the brain’s threat detection system and platforms engineered to keep users engaged.

Not all scrolling works the same way. Alexander TR Sharpe, an associate lecturer at the University of Chichester, distinguishes between doomscrolling and what some call “dopamine scrolling.”

“Doomscrolling refers to the repeated consumption of negative or crisis-related information,” he said. “It’s less about arousal and more about keeping threat-related material locked away.”

Why We Can’t Look Away

Cognitive scientists say the pattern is no accident. People need to prioritize threats, which makes negative news harder to ignore.

“Human memory, as a part of the cognitive system formed by evolutionary pressures, is biased to prioritize information related to danger, threats and emergencies to support survival,” says media psychology researcher Reza Shabahang.

“Thus, memory processes are more effective at encoding and retaining negative news content, making such information easier to recall. Negative information, and the memories associated with it, are therefore more salient and long-lasting.”

A 2026 study by Sharpe found links between doomscrolling and rumination, emotional exhaustion and intolerance of uncertainty. Participants who reported frequent doomscrolling also showed higher levels of anxiety, depression, and stress, along with lower resilience.

Shabahang says the behavior may resemble a form of indirect trauma exposure. “Trauma is not experienced only through direct personal exposure,” he said. “Constant exposure to images or reports of traumatic incidents can trigger severe stress responses and, in some cases, symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress.” The result is not always the trauma itself, but a nervous system that struggles to return to a state of calm.

The Brain Continues to Check

Experiments have shown that people will tolerate physical discomfort to resolve uncertainty. In moments of crisis, refreshing a feed can feel responsible—even protective.

A 2024 report by Shabahang found that prolonged exposure to negative news was linked to increased anxiety, uncertainty, and maladaptive stress responses. The issue is not that the news itself is harmful, but that repeated exposure without resolution appears to keep stress systems active.

Learning research suggests that emotional activation without closure strengthens stress responses rather than extinguishing them. Hamad Almheiri, the founder of BrainScroller, an app that replaces doomscrolling in microlearning, describes the effect viscerally: “The amygdala remains sensitive. Even if there is no physical danger, the brain responds as if the risk continues.”

Sharpe, however, urges caution about overstating neuroscience. “The doomscrolling literature has yet to do the classic biomarker work,” he said. “But we found consistent links to hypervigilance, rumination, and difficulty tolerating uncertainty.”

How Feed Engineer Scroll

Doomscrolling does not occur in a neutral environment. Social feeds are optimized to keep users engaged.

On a behavioral level, scrolling works on the same principle as a slot machine: unpredictability. Each refresh may reveal something new—a headline, a new update, a surprising video. That uncertainty is exactly what keeps people from checking again.