It’s 2:00 AM. You are doomscrolling through videos, occasionally tapping twice when a 12-second video makes you laugh. You’re tired and your eyes begin drooping, yet you power through the exhaustion as you restore yet another lost streak on TikTok. Didn’t you say you were going to sleep an hour ago?
With an endless stream of digital content, the distinction between mindless and meaningful discourse becomes increasingly indistinct.
Why we can’t stop scrolling
Doomscrolling is the act of excessively scrolling through content, even when it feels overwhelming, draining, or tiring. TikTok users started employing the term in a more general sense—associating it with “brainrot,” a term originating on Twitter, now X, as early as the 2010s to describe online comedic content related to video games and digital social experiences.
By 2024, this term had spread further, becoming the Oxford Word of the Year, where it was used to denote the prolonged consumption of low-quality media content. Doomscrolling can exhibit addictive-like qualities, with that positive-feeling dopamine release, which pushes people to keep on scrolling. This endless scrolling could worsen anxiety or depression and lead to insomnia.
“Ever since I started using TikTok, my attention span has gotten shorter. I wasn’t able to do normal daily tasks. Kahit importante ang need kong gawin sa acads, like magbasa ng readings and handouts, mag-continue pa rin ako scroll ng scroll,” Ellen Bejarin, a first-year BA International Studies student, said.
Other students also find themselves stuck in the same cycle: opening social media for a simple “break,” only to lose track of time and disregard their important academic responsibilities.
“Doomscrolling really took a toll on me kasi procrastination is not an option for my program that has a lot of demands, especially academics-wise. Sometimes when I study, I easily get distracted and I scroll through TikTok without even realizing I spent so many hours wasting time…mawalan rin ako ng motivation.” Zythqa Gonzales,a first-year BS Nursing student, expressed.
Not only do college students struggle with doomscrolling, but this phenomenon also affects younger generations. Have you ever had a young cousin so fixated on their greasy tablets that you couldn’t get a single word out of them? This intense exposure to the addictive scroll has dire consequences on these young and developing brains.
Doomscrolling vs the youth and education
Ranking sixth from the bottom in reading and mathematics, and third to the last in science, the Philippines scored concerningly low in the 2022 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), a study that assesses the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds in mathematics, reading, and science in over 81 countries.
This educational crisis, evident in low international proficiency scores, is further exacerbated by overconsumption of digital content. The constant and overwhelming rollout of mindless content and short-form video has inexplicably led to the decline of intellectual capacity, memory, and attention span. This great exposure to content that demands little cognitive effort is training the young, developing brain to crave instant, shallow gratification over deep intellectual engagement.
“I’ve had students who had trouble with their attention span, and getting them to focus on what I’m teaching is a challenge. Shocking lang na as young as they are, habitual ug excessive na ang paggamit ug cellphone,” said Paula Conui, a fourth-year student-teacher of the program Bachelor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Southeastern Philippines.
This national educational crisis isn’t solely being fought in classrooms, but in the digital world. Doomscrolling has crept up into students’ gadgets across the country, attacking and further eroding the already critical state of education in the Philippines.
Over digital validation
A simple and quick heart, reshare, or comment provides yet another instant emotional release and social validation, but fails to deepen understanding and bring about real, concrete change.
Many young people today consume information without pausing to question or reflect. Social issues trend one moment and disappear the next, replaced by the latest controversy or meme. In this cycle of brain rot and doomscrolling, attention becomes fragmented and critical thought takes a backseat. The challenge is not just to stay informed, but to think deeply—to recognize how digital spaces shape our perceptions and reactions.
With this, what’s needed goes beyond encouraging “responsible use” of technology. It calls for a fundamental rethinking of education itself. Schools must do more than teaching students the usual information technology education about “how to navigate apps or search engines;” they must also teach them how the human brain responds to overstimulation, how social media platforms are designed to exploit those responses, and highlight its vulnerabilities when placed under a fast-paced, information-loaded digital world.
Lessons in media literacy, discernment, and reflective thinking must start early, equipping the next generation not only to consume information, but to comprehend it—to see beyond the scroll and into the substance of what truly matters.
Editor’s Note: This article was first issued in the December 2025 First Semester Newsletter of Atenews.