It's 11 PM. You opened Twitter to check one thing. Now you're 47 tweets deep into a thread about economic collapse, climate disaster, or political chaos. Your heart is racing. Sleep feels impossible.

Sound familiar? That's doomscrolling — and it's destroying our mental health while convincing us we're "staying informed."

Here's the truth: you can be informed without being overwhelmed. It just requires being intentional about how you consume news.

What Doomscrolling Actually Does to You

Doomscrolling isn't just a bad habit. It has measurable effects:

Anxiety and stress: Constant negative news triggers your fight-or-flight response
Sleep disruption: Blue light + stress hormones = poor sleep quality
Decreased productivity: Mental bandwidth consumed by worry
Learned helplessness: Feeling like nothing you do matters
Distorted worldview: News emphasizes negative events, skewing your perception of reality

A 2020 study found that people who consumed more COVID news had higher rates of anxiety and depression — even controlling for actual COVID exposure. The news itself was the problem.

The Paradox: You Still Need to Know What's Happening

Going completely news-free isn't the answer either. You need to:

Make informed decisions (voting, investing, career)
Participate in conversations with colleagues and friends
Understand trends affecting your industry
Be a responsible citizen

The goal isn't ignorance. It's efficient, bounded information consumption.

The Healthy News Diet Framework

1. Set Time Boundaries

Decide in advance how much time you'll spend on news. For most people, 15-30 minutes per day is plenty.

Rules:

No news in the first hour after waking (sets negative tone for the day)
No news in the last hour before bed (disrupts sleep)
One or two dedicated news times, not constant checking

2. Choose Sources, Not Feeds

Algorithmic feeds (Twitter, Facebook, Google News) are designed to maximize engagement, not inform you. Outrage gets clicks.

Instead, choose 2-3 trusted sources and go directly to them:

One general news source: BBC, NPR, Reuters
One industry source: Hacker News, Bloomberg, TechCrunch
One long-form source: The Atlantic, Economist (for depth)

That's it. You don't need 47 sources. You need 3 good ones.

3. Summaries Over Full Coverage

You don't need to read every article about every event. For most news, a summary is enough.

Ask yourself: "Do I need to know the details, or just that this happened?"

For 90% of news, knowing it happened is sufficient. Save deep dives for topics that actually affect your life or decisions.

4. Audio Over Scrolling

Reading on a screen invites distraction. One article leads to another. Sidebars tempt you. Comments pull you in.

Audio is linear. It has a beginning and an end. When it's over, it's over.

Tools like Tera.fm let you listen to news summaries in under 10 minutes. No scrolling, no rabbit holes, no "just one more article."

5. Action Over Consumption

Ask yourself: "What can I actually do about this?"

If you can act: Vote, donate, volunteer, change behavior
If you can't act: Acknowledge it, then move on

Reading 50 articles about climate change doesn't help the climate. It just makes you anxious. Read enough to understand, then do something — or accept that some things are beyond your control.

A Sample Healthy News Routine

Morning (10 minutes)

Listen to a news briefing (BBC, NPR, or Tera.fm) during coffee or commute
No scrolling, no screens — just audio

Midday (5 minutes, optional)

Quick check of industry news if relevant to your work
Set a timer — when it goes off, close the tab

Evening

No news. Read a book, watch a show, talk to humans.

Weekly (30 minutes)

One long-form article on a topic you want to understand deeply
This is your "deep dive" time

Total: ~2 hours per week. That's enough to be informed without being consumed.

Tools That Help

Tera.fm: Audio news summaries — listen instead of scroll
News Feed Eradicator: Browser extension that blocks social media feeds
Freedom or Cold Turkey: Block news sites during certain hours
Apple Screen Time / Android Digital Wellbeing: Set app time limits

The Mindset Shift

Doomscrolling feels productive. "I'm staying informed!" But it's not. It's anxiety masquerading as responsibility.

Being informed means knowing what you need to know to make good decisions. It doesn't mean knowing every detail of every crisis in real-time.

You can be a good citizen, a smart professional, and a well-informed person on 30 minutes of news per day. The rest is just noise.

Start today: Replace your morning scroll with a 10-minute audio briefing. Notice how different you feel.

How to Stay Informed Without Doomscrolling