Doomscrolling vs. JOMO: Reclaiming Your Brain from the Attention Economy

To understand why doomscrolling is so difficult to stop, you need to understand the dopamine system — and specifically, a phenomenon called variable reward reinforcement.

People commonly call dopamine the brain’s “pleasure chemical” — however, this label misleads. More precisely, dopamine is the brain’s anticipation and seeking chemical — not its reward chemical. Dopamine surges not when you receive a reward, but when you anticipate the possibility of one. Crucially, this anticipatory surge peaks not when rewards are certain, but specifically when they are unpredictable.

This is the neurological basis of gambling addiction — and it is exactly the architecture built into social media feeds. Every swipe down is a pull of a slot machine lever. Most of the time, nothing much happens. Occasionally, a piece of content generates a strong emotional response — outrage, validation, entertainment, connection. Sometimes a reply, a like, or a message makes you feel genuinely seen. Crucially, the unpredictability is the mechanism. A slot machine paying out every pull would be boring. In contrast, one that pays occasionally and unpredictably creates compulsive engagement neurologically near-identical to addiction.

The Threat-Detection Hook

Furthermore, beyond dopamine, doomscrolling hooks a second neurological mechanism: the brain’s threat-detection system. Your amygdala — the brain’s alarm center — is finely tuned to register potential dangers and prioritize attention toward them. Threat-signaling information (danger, injustice, disease, social conflict) captures attention involuntarily and generates a compulsion to keep monitoring the threat, even when monitoring is making you feel substantially worse.

This is the ancient logic of the Permacrisis. For instance, ancestors compelled to monitor the burning horizon survived to pass on their genes. Their descendants are you — stuck scrolling through disaster news at midnight because your brain keeps insisting that looking away from the threat is dangerous.

Research has consistently documented concrete, measurable effects of chronic doomscrolling on mental and physical health. These effects are not minor — and several of them directly undermine your ability to practice cognitive security.

First, sleep disruption is among the most immediate consequences. Blue light from screens suppresses melatonin production, delaying sleep onset. Specifically, emotionally activating content consumed before sleep elevates cortisol. As a result, this keeps the nervous system in an arousal state inconsistent with rest. Consequently, the content you consume in the hour before sleep directly shapes the quality of your recovery.

Second, anxiety amplification follows from compulsive consumption patterns. Studies have found that problematic news consumption — consuming news despite feeling worse — drives significantly elevated anxiety and depression scores. Importantly, it appears to be the compulsive, uncontrolled quality of the consumption (not merely the volume) that most strongly predicts psychological harm.

Third, cognitive capacity reduction is particularly relevant to cognitive security. Chronic stress and anxiety impair the prefrontal cortex — the brain region responsible for analytical thinking, impulse control, and long-term planning. As a result, a mind in a state of persistent threat activation is literally less capable of the clear, analytical thinking that recognizing misinformation requires. In effect, doomscrolling consumes the very cognitive resources you need to protect yourself.

Cognitive and Decision Effects

Distorted risk perception results from the Availability Heuristic described in our article on information warfare and cognitive biases. Continuous exposure to crime, disaster, and conflict distorts your sense of how dangerous the world is. Researchers have called this the “Mean World Syndrome” since the 1970s.

Decision quality also deteriorates. Additionally, decision fatigue research shows that decision quality declines with volume. A brain exhausted by hours of processing emotionally charged content makes worse decisions about relationships, health, finances, and — crucially — what information to trust.

The cultural counterpoint to the anxiety of constant connectivity is a phenomenon called JOMO — the Joy Of Missing Out. JOMO deliberately reframes what it means to disconnect from the constant stream of digital information.

Specifically, where FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) treats disconnection as loss — missing events, conversations, news, social opportunities — JOMO, by contrast, treats it as gain. JOMO means the recovery of presence, attention, depth, and the quality of experience that constant distraction destroys.

Importantly, JOMO is not technophobia or a rejection of digital life. Rather, it is a conscious recalibration of attention and value. Much of what the attention economy demands your focus on is simply not worth the cost it extracts.

The Psychology of JOMO

Psychologically, JOMO draws on research on attention and wellbeing that consistently finds a strong positive correlation between depth of presence and subjective happiness. In fact, a mind fully engaged with one thing generates more positive affect. Simultaneously monitoring multiple information streams — while fully present in none — depletes both mood and focus.

FOMO roots itself in social comparison anxiety — the evolutionary drive to monitor your status relative to your group. JOMO, by contrast, is the recognition that the “group” your phone shows you is an algorithmically curated highlight reel, not reality. In short, this comparison pits your internal experience against others’ external performance. That comparison will never produce satisfaction.

Understanding the mechanisms is necessary but not sufficient. The practical question is: what actually works? Research from clinical psychology and behavioral science suggests several evidence-based approaches.

Environmental Design Over Willpower

Above all, the most important insight from behavioral science is that willpower is a poor tool for fighting engineered compulsion. A slot machine in your pocket will eventually win any contest of willpower. Therefore, the effective solution is environmental design: remove or reduce access to the trigger rather than relying on self-control in the moment.

Practical applications include removing social media apps from your phone — access via browser creates sufficient friction to break automatic opening. Enable scheduled “downtime” on your device. Charge your phone outside your bedroom. Use website blockers during defined work or wind-down periods. Finally, turn off all non-essential notifications.

Intentional Information Consumption

Importantly, research draws a clear line between two modes. Passive, reactive consumption means scrolling out of boredom or anxiety. Intentional, scheduled consumption means choosing specific sources, at specific times, for specific purposes. Scheduled, intentional consumption produces lower anxiety and better-informed citizens than either passive overconsumption or complete news avoidance.

In practice, choose two or three high-quality sources you trust. Allocate a specific time window for news reading — not first thing in the morning, and not immediately before bed. When the time is up, close the app or browser deliberately and completely.

The One-Screen-at-a-Time Rule

The simplest behavioral intervention with strong evidence: when you are doing something, do only that thing. When you eat, focus entirely on eating. If you are in conversation, be fully present in it. Reading deserves the same undivided attention. This “single-tasking” practice appears to reduce cognitive fatigue significantly over time and improve the subjective quality of experience across the board.

Physiological Interruption

The anxiety and stress arousal associated with doomscrolling are physiological states — they exist in the body, not just the mind. Evidence-based options include box breathing (four counts in, hold four, out four, hold four), brief physical movement, and cold water on the face. Extended exhales activate the parasympathetic nervous system more strongly than extended inhales.

Meaningful Attention Redirection

Finally, habit formation research consistently shows that substitution beats suppression. Replacing an unwanted behavior with one that meets the same underlying need works far better than willpower alone. An engaging book meets the stimulation need. Calling a friend meets the connection need. A weekly longform digest meets the “staying informed” need without the compulsive monitoring of the live feed.