Doomscrolling · Threads · verified October 2026

Doomscrolling on Threads: it’s not even about the news.

Threads just overtook X in daily mobile users — Similarweb data cited by TechCrunch in January 2026 put it ahead, 141.5 million to 125 million. But Pew Research has Threads at just 3% of US adults regularly getting news there, the lowest of any platform this series has covered. Whatever’s keeping people scrolling, it mostly isn’t headlines.

That makes Threads a different problem from X, and a lot like Instagram or Reddit: the fix starts with what actually helps inside the app itself, including two algorithm-steering tools Meta built in direct response to a user backlash in 2026. Only at the end does it get honest about the much smaller slice of readers whose actual want, buried in there somewhere, is the news.

Jump to what worksSee why Threads makes this hard
Why this is happening

Threads is growing fast and leaning harder into the algorithm.

  • Threads quietly overtook X in daily mobile users — without being built around news at all. Similarweb data cited by TechCrunch on January 18, 2026 found Threads reached 141.5 million mobile daily active users versus 125 million for X, as of early January 2026 — the first time Threads had pulled ahead. X still leads by far on the open web (145.4 million daily visits versus 8.5 million for Threads, per the same report). But Pew Research's Social Media and News Fact Sheet puts Threads at just 3% of US adults regularly getting news there — the lowest of any platform this series has covered, a fraction of X's 12% or Facebook's 38%. A platform growing this fast is holding people's attention for reasons that have almost nothing to do with staying informed.

  • In February 2026, the backlash to the algorithm got loud enough that Meta built a feature around it. Starting around February 11, 2026, users began publicly posting messages starting with "Dear Algo" — part complaint, part meme — asking Threads' recommendation system to show them less of something. Within days, Meta shipped an actual feature by that name: post "Dear Algo, show me more posts about [topic]" publicly, and your feed adjusts for three days. Because the request is a public post, anyone can see it and repost it to apply the same tweak to their own feed — Meta frames it as a community discovery mechanic, not a private setting. It rolled out first to the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand.

  • By June 2026, Threads hit half a billion users — and leaned further into personalization, not less. Meta's own newsroom announced Threads crossed 500 million monthly active users on June 16, 2026, roughly three years after its 2023 launch. Alongside the milestone, Meta added "Your Algo" — a private companion to Dear Algo, letting you tell Threads what you want more or less of without posting publicly, for a duration you choose of one, three or seven days — plus a dedicated Communities discovery hub added to the app's main menu. The fixes for feeling over-algorithmed were, again, more algorithm, just with a finer dial.

  • The same company's other two apps were just found in breach of EU law for this — Threads hasn't been, at least not yet. In July 2026 the European Commission issued preliminary findings that Instagram and Facebook's infinite scroll, autoplay, notifications and recommender system breach the EU's Digital Services Act. Threads doesn't appear on the Commission's list of formally designated large platforms, so it can't currently be the subject of that kind of finding, and no FTC action or state attorney-general lawsuit against Meta names Threads either — the active 33-state youth mental-health suit names Facebook and Instagram's design specifically. Threads runs on much of the same underlying recommendation technology as its two sibling apps; it's simply smaller and newer than the two regulators have focused on so far.

What actually helps

Five changes, inside Threads itself.

None of these require deleting the app. They're settings — two of them shipped only in 2026 — that put the ranking decision back in your hands.

  1. Switch to the "Following" feed — and set it as your actual default. Tap the Threads logo or Home icon at the top of the app to reveal two tabs: "For You" and "Following." Following shows only accounts you follow, roughly in the order they posted, with no algorithmic reordering. It used to reset to "For You" every time you reopened the app, but Threads added a setting in March 2025 that lets you set Following (or a custom feed) as your persistent default — worth checking even if you tried this a while ago and gave up on it resetting.

  2. Turn off notifications by category, not with one global switch. Tap your profile picture → the menu icon (☰) in the top right → Notifications, then turn off specific categories — replies, mentions, or activity from people you don't follow — rather than silencing everything. On iPhone you can also go to Settings → Notifications → Threads and turn off "Allow Notifications" entirely if you want a harder cutoff.

  3. Turn on Time Management and set a real daily cap. In Account Settings, open "Time Management" to see your actual daily average, set a daily time limit, and schedule a recurring "Sleep Mode" window. It's a genuine, Threads-native dashboard — not a guess about how much you're actually using it.

  4. Mute instead of unfollowing or blocking. Open any of their posts or their profile and tap "Mute" — you stay following them and they're never notified, but their posts stop showing up in your feed. Worth knowing before you reach for it: blocking on Threads also blocks that account on Instagram, since the two apps share the same block list.

  5. Set a hard daily limit at the OS level as a backstop. iPhone: Settings → Screen Time → App Limits → add Threads with a daily minute cap. Android: Settings → Digital Wellbeing & parental controls → set a timer on Threads. A limit that interrupts you mid-scroll works better than a dashboard you have to remember to check yourself.

If part of what pulls you to Threads is actually the news

Most Threads scrolling is replies, memes and identity posting — Go Brief doesn’t touch that job and was never built to. But if part of your pattern is checking Threads partly to see what’s going on, and getting pulled into an unrelated thread before you find it, that specific want has a more direct fix than any Threads setting: Go Brief’s daily brief covers the topics you pick, written at your level, in about five minutes — and then it ends, instead of handing you back to the scroll.

Questions

What people ask about Threads doomscrolling.

How do I stop doomscrolling on Threads?

Switch to the "Following" feed and set it as your persistent default under Threads' 2025 feed-default setting (it no longer resets to "For You" every time you reopen the app), turn off notifications by category instead of all at once, and turn on Threads' built-in Time Management tool to set a daily cap. If what's actually pulling you back is wanting to know what's happening rather than the scroll itself, Threads probably isn't even the right place to look — Pew puts its news use at just 3% of US adults, the lowest of any major platform.

Why is Threads so addictive if it's not even about the news?

Threads' pull is conversation and identity, not headlines — Similarweb data cited by TechCrunch found it overtook X in daily mobile users in January 2026 despite Pew ranking it last for news use among tracked platforms. The February 2026 "Dear Algo" backlash-turned-feature and June 2026's "Your Algo" tool are both proof the app runs on the same algorithmic-feed mechanics as any other social app — just dialed by topic rather than by politics.

Is Threads worse than X (Twitter) for doomscrolling?

They're built on different problems. X's pull is concentrated and political — most people left on it specifically want news, per the Reuters Institute. Threads' pull is broader and more social; its own numbers put news use at just 3%, so the "doomscroll" there is more often replies, memes and identity posting than anxiety about current events. The fix differs accordingly: X's Following tab and Lists target political content specifically, while Threads' Dear Algo and Your Algo tools target topics generally.

What does Threads' "Dear Algo" feature actually fix?

It lets you publicly post "Dear Algo, show me more/less of [topic]" and have your feed adjust for three days — genuinely more control than no setting at all, but it's a public post other people can see and repost, not a private dial. Meta added a private version, "Your Algo," in June 2026 for anyone who'd rather not broadcast the request, with a choice of one, three or seven days. Neither one turns the recommendation system off; both just let you steer it more specifically.

Is Threads a good place to get real news, or mostly opinions and chat?

Mostly the latter. Pew's Social Media and News Fact Sheet has only 3% of US adults regularly getting news on Threads, the lowest of any platform it tracks — well behind Facebook (38%), YouTube (35%) or even X (12%). If staying informed is the actual want underneath the scroll, a source built for that job directly — like Go Brief's daily brief, written at your level across the topics you pick — answers it more directly than any Threads setting can.

How do I turn off Threads notifications for good?

Tap your profile picture → the menu icon (☰) → Notifications, and turn off specific categories like replies, mentions or activity from accounts you don't follow — more targeted than a blanket mute, since it leaves alerts from people you actually care about untouched. For a harder cutoff, iPhone users can go to Settings → Notifications → Threads and switch off "Allow Notifications" at the device level instead.

Free on iOS and Android

For the part that’s actually the news, five minutes and you’re caught up.

Your topics, your level — one daily brief, and then it’s done.

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Method

How this was put together.

  • What we checked. How Threads' growth and algorithm-steering tools changed through 2026, what Pew's own data says about who actually uses it for news, and whether any regulator has formally examined its design the way Instagram and Facebook's has — not opinion pieces.

  • Where the facts came from. Similarweb usage data as reported by TechCrunch, Meta's own newsroom announcements, Pew Research's Social Media and News Fact Sheet, and the European Commission's own platform designation list — named and linked below, checked in October 2026.

  • What we didn't do. No invented statistics, no “studies show” without a named study, and no claim that a regulatory finding exists where it doesn't — Threads isn't named in the EU's DSA findings against its sibling apps, and this page says so plainly rather than implying otherwise.

  • What would change it. Threads' settings menus and feature set both move fast — two of the tools on this page shipped in the first half of 2026 alone. The date above is when this was last checked. Tell us if a step here has gone stale and we'll fix the page.

Sources

Platform by platform

One app at a time, not one blanket rule.

What you're actually scrolling for is different on every app, so the fix is too. This series covers one platform at a time — more are on the way.

Looking for the general framework instead of one platform — start at the doomscrolling hub, which covers what works on any app.

From the blog

Why we built a feed that ends.

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