I’m as guilty as anyone else for waking up, grabbing my phone and doomscrolling on X (I still call it Twitter in real life like a normal person, don’t worry!).
That habit has exposed me to a timeline full of terrible hot takes, biased explanations of political developments, and retweets of product announcements that excite me… only to learn they’re now sold out. Now and then, I’m treated to some actual good news—the news aggregator profiles I follow provide me with my daily dose of video game review previews/roundups, album release date reveals, and major updates on the news that affects the world as a whole the most.
But I know my doomscrolling tendencies aren’t exactly a positive for my mental well-being and productivity levels. Swiping up and down for an extended period and being assaulted by a timeline full of negativity and half-truths is no longer the move.
So I used ChatGPT to catch up on all the news I missed in 48 hours. Not only did this experiment prove to be more beneficial than I thought it would, but it also helped me leave my morning doomscrolling behavior behind.
AI playing the part of my personal news curator
Last Friday (July 10), I woke up and almost reached for my phone again for some good old-fashioned morning doomscrolling. But I stopped myself, turned on my laptop and chose to boot up ChatGPT instead to try out my newest way of catching up on the news.
I asked the chatbot to generate the most descriptive prompt it could to make sure I got up to speed on everything I might have missed or needed a reminder of from the fast-moving news cycle. With prior knowledge of my hobbies and interests, this is what ChatGPT came up with:
Act as my personal news curator.
I intentionally avoided news and social media for the last 48 hours to stop doomscrolling.
Summarize everything I genuinely need to know from that period.
Organize your response into these sections:
1. Biggest Stories (5-10 items): The most important global, political, business, science, technology, and cultural events that are likely to have lasting significance. Explain why each story matters in 2-3 sentences.
2. AI & Tech: Cover major developments from companies like OpenAI, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Anthropic, NVIDIA, and notable startups. Mention product launches, major updates, security issues, and industry shifts.
3. Entertainment & Gaming: Summarize the biggest news from movies, TV, streaming, video games, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, PC gaming, and pop culture.
4. Internet Buzz: Explain any memes, viral moments, or online discussions that became unavoidable—and whether they're likely to disappear in a week or have lasting relevance.
5. Things I Can Safely Ignore: List stories that generated lots of attention but ultimately weren't very important, with a one-sentence explanation.
6. Winners & Losers: Which companies, products, celebrities, or public figures had notably good or bad 48 hours?
7. Looking Ahead: What events should I watch over the next week?
Finally, finish with a section called "The 60-Second Catch-Up," where you summarize the entire 48 hours in ten concise bullet points. Prioritize signal over noise and avoid sensationalism.
Staying up to date on the news and finally leaving doomscrolling behind
ChatGPT did a great job filtering its information rollout for “high signal over high engagement”, which were described to me as “the stories most likely to matter a month from now, not just what dominated social media feeds.”
Afterward, the chatbot laid out detailed summaries of what’s most important across each of the topic areas I told it to look into. I was given an update on the escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran, was made aware of Google’s launch plans for its Pixel 11 smartphone, and even found out about an esports event I didn’t even know was happening for one of my favorite games at the time (for those that want to know, it was the Esports World Cup tournament for Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves).
The Internet buzz section gave me some actual search terms to look up through my regular web search and through Twitter, as I’m always on the lookout for legit news sources on the matter at hand and reading people’s opinions about it as well. I was unaware of fake pre-order scams popping up everywhere for GTA 6 pre-orders before ChatGPT notified me about them, which led me to do some extended research on it (hard to believe that people are really falling for sites promising early access to the game when Rockstar Games has never done something like that before).
The other sections proved to be just as useful, especially the one for “Looking Ahead (Next Week).” Getting the heads up about the most important news set to arrive in the coming week (July 12-18), such as announcements for Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event and further details about Microsoft’s long-term Xbox strategy, helped me stay in tune with what may be coming down the pipeline.
The takeaway
ChatGPT adopted its role as my news curator, laid out everything in an easy-to-understand fashion, included links to sources where it lifted its information from and fed me a wealth of search terms to look up on my own when conducting further research.
This experiment showed me three things: doomscrolling first thing in the morning is a huge detriment, using ChatGPT to build out a quick summary for all major news stories of the past two days is incredibly helpful and using the chatbot’s news report to conduct my own research is equally beneficial for me on a personal and professional level.
Feel free to swap out some of the topics included in my prompt for subjects of your own to make ChatGPT play the role of your personal news curator as well.
