I'm trying to do you all stop doomscrolling before bed?

The only thing that stopped my late night doomscrolling was adding friction and a ritual. I plug my phone in across the room and use a cheap alarm clock, so getting to it requires getting out of bed. I also made the phone boring at night using the built in settings. On iPhone, go to Settings > Focus > Sleep and schedule it for an hour before bed with no people or apps allowed, then in Settings > Screen Time turn on Downtime for the same window and set Always Allowed to just Phone and Clock and give Social and News strict App Limits.

On Android, open Settings > Digital Wellbeing > Bedtime mode, schedule it nightly, turn on grayscale and Do Not Disturb, and set App timers for your problem apps. Grayscale helps a lot because the feeds stop looking rewarding, and the taps feel pointless after a few minutes. I also moved the worst apps off my home screen and logged out of them after 9 pm, so I have to type a password if I want in. I set a 10 minute timer labeled last scroll, and when it goes off I swap to a paper book and a small warm lamp, or I put on a sleep podcast with a 15 minute auto stop and face the phone down. If my brain keeps grabbing for the phone, I scribble tomorrow worries in a notebook, take three slow breaths, and tell myself I can check in the morning. It took about a week for the urge to fade, but once the routine stuck I fell asleep faster and stopped waking up tired.

Yeah, I stopped bargaining with myself and automated the cutoff. Phone goes on a charger across the room at 10, and a dumb alarm clock handles wake up. Focus mode kicks on at 9:45 and blocks every app except calls, notes, and my sleep sounds. Screen turns grayscale then too, which makes doomscrolling feel like eating plain rice and my goblin brain loses interest. If I want to override, I have to type a long passcode and wait a minute, which is just enough friction to make me quit. I set a 10 minute timer for a last look and when it rings, phone goes on the charger, lights out.

I'm embarrassingly spreadsheet about this, so I logged nights for two weeks. The only change that really mattered was moving the phone out of reach and automating Focus, not willpower. Writing down the stray thought in a bedside notebook handled the itch to check one more thing. If you hate notebooks, dictate a quick voice memo and close the phone.