Apps to stop you from endless doomscrolling

You open your phone to check the time or a quick message. The next thing you know, an hour has passed and you’ve waded through an endless stream of celebrity drama, cat videos, bad news, magic, and whatever else the algorithm decides to throw at you.

Although you don’t want to waste your time and energy on mind-numbing things, you will do them again the next day.

Doomscrolling, the habit of spending too much time on social media, has become incredibly widespread. Last year’s survey found that 64% of Americans say they are wasteful.

Researchers have warned that doomscrolling can affect several aspects of your life, including your mental health and longevity. Spending money long periods of time Snoring can cause brain fatigue, poor concentration, and sleep disturbances. And if the information you’re using is negative or disturbing, it can turn you off feeling depressedanxiety, and despair.

It’s hard to break doomscrolling habits, but there are many programs that offer interesting and useful features.

Of course, you can always read a book or take a walk (we have a guide how to stop doomscrolling), but this list is for when you have a few minutes to spare and want something to do on your phone that isn’t endlessly scrolling.

Radio Garden

If you still want to stay connected to the world without looking at social media, you can check out Radio Garden. This app lets you listen to over 25,000 radio stations from around the world.

When you open the app, you will see green dots marking cities and towns. Click on any dot to listen to radio stations broadcasting from there. You can add favorites or search for stations, countries, and locations.

Radio Garden is free, but also offers an ad-free plan for $2.99 ​​per month. This program is available for both iOS and Android.

Raise it

Elevate is a program designed to help improve attention, memory, reading, math, and other cognitive skills. It includes more than 40 games to teach you a variety of skills you use in everyday life, from reading quickly to comparing prices effectively.

You can track training opportunities and compare how your ideas work over time.

The app offers a free version with three games per day, or an annual subscription for $39.99 for unlimited access. Available for both iOS and Android.

Words

Words is an app that helps you learn new words every day. You can choose your challenges and choose the areas that interest you, such as psychology, the human body, business, and more. Each word comes with a definition, example sentences, and a pronunciation guide.

The app also has mini games to help you review the words you’ve learned. You can set a goal of how many words you want to learn each week and make it a habit to learn regularly.

Word offers a free trial, and then costs $4.99 per month or $59.99 per year. Available at iOS and Android.

Setra

If you are a geographer looking to test your knowledge or just want to improve your geography skills, Seterra is perfect for you. The app features over 300 games to test your mapping skills. You can test your knowledge of national flags; explore lakes, rivers, and streams; and see mountains and hills all over the world.

Seterra allows you to track your progress in all categories and view leaderboards for each game.

This app is free and available for both iOS and Android.

NYT Sports

The NYT Games app offers a variety of word, logic, and number games that change daily to exercise your imagination. You can play crosswords, try word guesses in Wordle, group words with a common theme in Connect, see how many words you can make from seven letters in Spelling Bee, and more.

The app costs $5.99 a month to get unlimited access to the past, but other games like Wordle, Strands, and Mini Crossword are available to play for free.

NYT Games is available on both iOS and Android.

Dots

If you want to learn a new language but want to try something other than Duolingo, Dots it’s a good way. The app uses fun mini-games to help you build familiar words and phrases in over 45 languages, with large lessons designed to be completed in about five minutes a day.

Drops is designed for beginners and experts who want to expand their vocabulary in foreign languages.

The free version of the program offers five minutes of training per day. You can get unlimited access with tools starting at $11.99 per month or $79.99 per year. This program is available for both iOS and Android.