How Doomscrolling is Quietly Tanking your SAT Score, and How to Reclaim Your Focus
Social media trains your brain for speed, not stamina. Here is why that matters on test day, and how to rebuild your reading focus.
By Evan Vorspan
Math Tutor (Specializing in Algebra I/II, and Precalculus)
We’ve all been there: you open TikTok, Instagram, or Shorts intending to take a "quick 5-minute break," and suddenly an hour has passed. Your eyes are tired, your brain feels full of visual noise, and the idea of opening a textbook or a novel feels completely exhausting.
While we often think of social media addiction as just a time-waster, the reality is much worse for students preparing for standardized tests: doomscrolling systematically destroys the exact cognitive muscles required to score well on the SAT.
The Short-Form Mindset vs. Dense Reading
Social media algorithms are engineered to deliver rapid hits of dopamine: a chemical that delivers motivation and happiness to your brain. When doomscrolling for extended periods of time, your brain gets accustomed to processing constant hits of dopamine, switching topics rapidly without requiring deep contextual analysis or sustained focus.
Reading a book, or trying to read an SAT passage, demands the exact opposite. It requires:
Deep focus: Holding multiple arguments or narrative threads in working memory.
Patience: Unpacking complex sentence structures, double negatives, and archaic vocabulary.
Passive endurance: Sitting in quiet concentration for extended blocks of time without constant external stimulation.
When you train your brain on rapid scrolling, long-form text starts to feel physically uncomfortable. Your mind craves hits of dopamine every few seconds, resulting in mental drift, re-reading the same line four times, and severe fatigue.
My Experience
When I took my first SAT practice test, my reading and writing score was 570/800. My math performance was a solid 710/800, but I noticed a pattern in my English performance; every passage that was more than 3 lines of text, I almost always got the answer wrong.
I would look at a 150-word passage on 19th-century history or a complex scientific abstract and instantly feel a wave of brain fog. My attention span had become so fragmented by constant social media scrolling that I simply couldn’t sustain reading. I would read three lines, lose focus, miss crucial logical connections, and end up making wild guesses on questions that required precise textual evidence.
It wasn’t that I didn’t understand English. It was that my brain was so starved for quick stimulation that reading dense text felt like running a marathon.
Rebuilding Your Reading Stamina
Overcoming the doomscrolling slump isn’t just about willpower; it’s about re-training your brain’s capacity for deep work.
My Tips that Helped Overcome Social Media Addiction:
Put your phone in another room: The mere physical presence of a smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity. When studying or taking practice tests, remove the distraction entirely.
Reintroduce physical books: Start reading actual books or long-form essays for 20 minutes a day without looking at screens. It forces your mind to slow down and practice sustained tracking.
Take timed, active reading breaks: Annotate and actively engage with text rather than passively skimming. Highlight key transitions and main ideas to keep your brain focused.
Set screen time limits: On your phone, set a harsh limit on your usage of Instagram, Tiktok, or any other platform that you regularly scroll.
This was the biggest thing for me, once my scrolling was limited, my SAT performance as well as my capacity to read books was back to normal.
After 4 weeks of practicing these strategies, my English performance on a practice test jumped from the previous 570/800 to an outstanding 730/800.
Please note that training my attention span was a key factor in the score jump, but it was also accompanied by review and deep learning of SAT English topics.
In Essence
The SAT tests endurance and focus just as much as content knowledge. You can spend hours studying material, but if you also spend hours scrolling social media, your score will hit a plateau. By stepping away from the endless scrolling sessions, you aren’t just saving time. You’re giving your mind the room it needs to read deeply, retain information, and perform at its best on test day.
About the author
Evan Vorspan
Math Tutor (Specializing in Algebra I/II, and Precalculus)
Hi! My name is Evan Vorspan and I am currently a junior in high school. I have recently completed my second year at ERS and I have stepped into the role of being a math specialist, tutoring primarily high school math topics such as Algebra I, Algebra II, and Precalculus. I spent much of my summer preparing for the August SAT in which I encountered many setbacks, such as the attention span struggles discussed in this article, and I have learned strategies and methods to overcome these challenges. In a 1-on-1 session with me, you can expect detailed explanations, thoughtful feedback, and many strategies to help you succeed. Outside of tutoring, you can catch me on the volleyball court or watching the Dodgers, Lakers, and Rams.
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