88% of Youth Doomscroll, Losing Sleep as Meta Curfews Take Effect
San Francisco – September 19, 2026 -- A new national poll from Hopelab and Data for Progress finds that 88% of young people ages 13 to 24 engage in doomscrolling, with roughly half reporting they lose more than an hour of sleep on nights they scroll negative or upsetting content. The findings arrive as Meta implements a landmark child safety settlement with 47 states, the District of Columbia, and several U.S. territories requiring overnight curfews, school-hour notification limits, and daily time caps for teens on Instagram and Facebook.
Doomscrolling hits 32% of young people daily, concentrated at bedtime
Of the 88% who reported the habit, 32% said they doomscroll every day or multiple times a day. Roughly two-thirds said the behavior peaks during free time or before bed over the prior two weeks, directly overlapping with the sleep window Meta's new curfew provisions target.