End of doomscroll? UK wants to ban infinite scroll in social media

The end of doomscrolling is nigh. Or at least, for the first time in a long time, it feels like someone in power has actually looked at our collective glazed eyes, and our reduced attention spans and connected it with the destructive habit of infinite scrolling on our smartphone screens. Enough is enough!

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That’s exactly what the UK Government has announced in January 2026, setting up a consultation on restricting so-called “addictive by design” features in social media apps. Infinite scrolling or doom scrolling – alongside streaks and autoplay – has been named and shamed in plain English, as part of the UK’s child safety discussions under its Online Safety Act. 

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This step alone feels historic, because it raises the bar for what’s acceptable and what’s not as far as online social media apps are concerned. 

For years, infinite scroll has been treated like gravity. It’s clever, unavoidable, and just how feeds are supposed to work. But that assumption has been seriously challenged, and infinite scrolling is now being discussed the way we once talked about smoking indoors.

This isn’t just Britain’s moral panic, by the way. In Australia, the eSafety Commissioner has memorably described infinite scroll as “behavioural cocaine,” in its landmark ban on social media for kids. The US, too, has flirted with intervention on this front – most notably when Senator Josh Hawley proposed a ban on infinite scroll and autoplay as far back as 2019. 

This very decisive shift in public opinion and increased scrutiny on digital platforms comes on the back of breakthrough medical and behavioural research. Study after study now describes infinite scroll as “addiction by design,” a variable reward system that hijacks the same dopamine loops as slot machines. A 2025 public health paper even coined the term “dopamine-scrolling,” linking endless feeds to fractured attention, anxiety, and compulsive use – not just among teenagers, but adults with jobs, families, and supposed self-control.

All this matters because infinite scrolling or doomscrolling isn’t so much about what we consume but more about how we consume online information. Because the platforms optimized for engagement don’t care whether you’re reading war updates, memes, or wedding photos – all they care is that you don’t stop. Even when most users want to reduce scrolling on their smartphone, they can’t. That’s a design problem, and it’s great that leading world governments are finally trying to fix it.

What this means for India

India has all the ingredients for the same reckoning, but none of the enforcement – yet. The Digital India Act gestures at regulating “addictive tech” for minors through age-gating and design restrictions. Infinite scroll could fall squarely into that bucket. But as of 2026, it remains unimplemented.

Meanwhile, Indian research paints a worrying picture. Studies link excessive social media use to adolescent depression, anxiety, and addiction rates hovering around 40 percent. The Indian Psychiatric Society has called for digital hygiene guidelines. But without regulatory teeth, it argues, guidelines are just polite suggestions, nothing more.

Doomscrolling didn’t emerge accidentally, and it won’t disappear accidentally either. The significance of these global moves isn’t that governments are suddenly anti-tech. It’s that they’re finally admitting what users have felt in their bones for years.

Also read: Instagram wants to build a TV app, as if doomscrolling on phones wasn’t enough

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Jayesh Shinde

Executive Editor at Digit. Technology journalist since Jan 2008, with stints at Indiatimes.com and PCWorld.in. Enthusiastic dad, reluctant traveler, weekend gamer, LOTR nerd, pseudo bon vivant. View Full Profile