You unlock your phone to check the time or read a quick message, and suddenly an hour has gone by as you scroll without stopping through celebrity news, cat videos, bad news, influencer comments and whatever else the algorithms decide to show you.
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You probably don't want to keep wasting your time and energy on content that scatters your attention, yet you return to the same habit the next day.
"Doomscrolling," the term for spending long periods consuming content on social media, has become widespread. A survey conducted last year found that 64% of Americans engage in the behaviour.
Researchers warn that doomscrolling can affect many aspects of people's lives, including their mental health and ability to concentrate. Long stretches of scrolling can lead to mental exhaustion, difficulty focusing and sleep disorders.
If much of the content you follow is negative or stressful, it can leave you feeling frustrated, anxious and emotionally drained.
Breaking the doomscrolling cycle is hard, but many apps offer interactive and useful content that helps you spend your time better.
Of course, you can always read a book or go for a walk, and we have already published a guide on how to stop doomscrolling. But this list is for those moments when you have a few spare minutes and want to do something on your phone that is not an endless scroll.
FinchFinch is a self-care app built around raising a virtual pet, designed to help users build healthy habits.
The app lets you look after a cute virtual animal by completing simple daily goals, such as drinking enough water, going for a walk or doing mindfulness exercises.
You can also log the events of your day, do breathing exercises, or send a positive message to a friend after adding them to the app.
The more you look after yourself, the healthier and more energetic your virtual pet becomes. The app offers a fun way to replace aimless scrolling with short moments devoted to physical and mental wellbeing.
Finch is free on iOS and Android.
Libby
Libby is a free reading app that connects users to the digital collection of their local public library, including e-books, audiobooks and magazines.
All you need is a library membership card to borrow thousands of titles, which makes it easy to turn the time you would spend staring at your phone into something useful.
You can explore a new book while commuting or waiting for your doctor's appointment, turning moments that would normally pull you into social media into reading time.
Libby is free on iOS and Android.
Dudel Draw
If you want a break from doomscrolling and a creative outlet, Dudel Draw may be a good choice.
Each day the app presents a random shape that you are asked to turn into a drawing. The shapes range from simple geometric designs to more complex and abstract ones.
You can also invite friends to join in, with fun challenges that compare the drawings each of you produces.
It can offer a welcome break from the habit of endlessly swapping TikTok clips or Instagram Reels.
Dudel Draw is free on iOS.
Radio Garden
If you still want to feel connected to the world around you without scrolling social media, try Radio Garden.
The app lets you listen to more than 25,000 radio stations broadcasting live from around the world.
When you open it, green dots appear on the map, marking cities and towns around the globe. Tap any dot to listen to the radio stations broadcasting from that location.
You can add stations to your favourites or search for stations, countries and specific places.
Radio Garden is free, but it also offers an ad-free paid subscription for $2.99 a month.
It is available on iOS and Android.
ElevateElevate is designed to help improve focus, memory, reading and maths skills, and other cognitive abilities.
It includes more than 40 games that train different skills people use in everyday life, from improving reading speed to becoming more efficient at comparing prices.
Users can track the number of consecutive days they have stuck to their training and compare their mental performance over time.
The app has a free version that gives access to three games a day, along with an annual subscription at $39.99 that provides unlimited access to the games.
Elevate is available on iOS and Android.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary helps users learn new words every day.
You can set the difficulty level and choose the subjects that interest you, such as emotions, the human body and business.
Each word comes with a definition, examples showing how it is used in sentences, and guidance on pronunciation.
The app also includes short games that help users review the vocabulary they have learned.
You can set a weekly target for the number of words you want to learn and build a regular routine for acquiring new vocabulary.
Vocabulary offers a free trial, after which it requires a subscription of $4.99 a month or $59.99 a year.
It is available on iOS and Android.
Seterra
If you love geography and want to test your knowledge, or simply want to improve your geographical skills, Seterra may suit you.
The app includes more than 300 different games for testing your knowledge of maps and geography.
You can test your knowledge of national flags, identify oceans, seas and rivers, and explore mountain ranges and volcanoes around the world.
The app also lets you track your progress in different categories and view leaderboards showing the top scores in each game.
Seterra is free on iOS and Android.
NYT Games
The NYT Games app from The New York Times offers a set of word, logic and number games that are refreshed daily to keep your mind active.
You can solve crosswords, play the popular word-guessing game Wordle, or group words that share a theme in Connections.
You can also test your ability to form as many words as possible from seven letters in Spelling Bee, along with other games.
A subscription costs $5.99 a month and gives unlimited access to the games and their archive.
However, some games are free, including Wordle, Strands and the Mini Crossword.
NYT Games is available on iOS and Android.
Drops
If you want to learn a new language but are looking for an alternative to Duolingo, Drops may be a good fit.
The app uses visually appealing short games to help users learn common vocabulary and phrases in more than 45 languages.
Lessons come in short learning units, designed to be completed in about five minutes a day.
The app targets beginners as well as more advanced users who want to expand their foreign-language vocabulary.
The free version offers five-minute lessons each day. Unlimited access to the full content and premium features costs $11.99 a month or $79.99 a year.
Drops is available on iOS and Android.
