How many times a day do you find yourself picking up your phone and scrolling through your favorite apps without even realizing? It becomes instinctive and habitual, often distracting you from work or wasting time throughout the day.
This was something that Iona Burciaga found herself doing all too often. She told Newsweek that her doomscrolling habits were "pretty unrestrained," especially when it came to TikTok. Anytime she picked up her phone, she gravitated to TikTok and could spend ages watching meaningless videos without even realizing.
"I wasn't aware of how much time I spent chronically online," Burciaga, of San Francisco Bay, California, said. "I scrolled for about eight hours prior to changing my habits -- sometimes even more."
An economic impact study conducted by the Optometric Association in tandem with Deloitte found that over 104 million Americans of working age spend more than seven hours daily looking at screens. The 2024 report defines excessive screen time exposure as seven or more hours of daily screen time per day, which can lead to vision-related symptoms, headaches, neck pain and migraines.
In November 2025, Burciaga decided she'd had enough of wasting her time doomscrolling through social media. She wanted to be more focused and present, so she set herself the challenge to stop doomscrolling for 35 days.
As it turned out, it proved transformational and she didn't want to fall back into her old habits after the 35 days. She has continued this new routine and made it last for more than 50 days.
"I started on November 11, 2025 privately for 35 days, and then I decided to continue when I led my online community to join me with a public social media fast. I noticed by the third day that my thumb had a brain of its own, but I just slowed down and closed the app if I opened it. Days 10 and 11 seemed to have the most impact because by then I was actively fighting it," Burciaga said.
The first change that Burciaga noticed was an improvement in her focus. She could actually pay attention to other things and wasn't getting distracted by her phone. Rather than instinctively opening social media for several minutes, Burciaga was more efficient and able to prioritize tasks.
Merriam-Webster defines doomscrolling as spending excessive amounts of time online scrolling through news or other content that makes you feel sad, anxious or angry. It was first used in 2020 as the habit rose to prevalence during the pandemic when horrifying headlines were hard to ignore.
Six years on and doomscrolling shows no sign of going away. In fact, experts from Harvard Medical School suggest that it provides an insidious threat to our mind and bodies. Fortunately, there are simple steps to take which can help cut back on the scrolling. These include keeping your phone off your nightstand, not bringing it to the dinner table, opting out of notifications, and focusing on the good that is undoubtedly still out there.
Perhaps one of the more surprising shifts that Burciaga has noticed is the impact it's had on her style. She told Newsweek that the social media fast has given her the time and space to formulate her own outfits rather than replicating the curated styles she saw online.
Burciaga said: "This part is my favorite. I didn't realize how I was constantly being bombarded with imagery, ads, trends, even other people's personal style and being influenced by it. Stepping away made me realize I was always there, and that allowed me to hone in on my authenticity."
Following the 50-day fast, Burciaga shared a video on TikTok (@ionasarchive) to explain the positive impact of not constantly scrolling. The video has gone viral with over 1.6 million views and more than 177,200 likes on TikTok at the time of writing.
As a result, Burciaga is encouraging others to at least try it for themselves and see how it could help them.
"Everyone's waiting for social media to shut down," Burciaga said, "but it's here to stay. The best thing to do is learn to control your impulses and have self-control now and build discipline so you can live more freely. Create more and consume less."
Since the video went viral, hundreds of TikTok users took to the comments to find out more about how Burciaga implemented such a drastic change. Ironically, many came across the clip while they too were doomscrolling.
Among the 800 comments on the video, one TikTok user wrote: "Less scrolling = more ideas."
Another person replied: "Doomscrolling makes me feel so unoriginal."
While another comment reads: "This is my sign to stop! Putting my phone down and breaking this habit!"