The anxiety bubbles up fast during contentious social posts. A buzzing head, activated limbs and fingers curling into typing position signal the urge to jump into a virtual melee after hearing about it at work.
In one group once joined, the crowd was piling on someone over what was clearly a mistake. Commenters—many kind and rational offline—claimed it was deliberate, malicious or some inscrutable legal move. But stepping away from a large social platform meant no reply would be posted.
That distance began around 2019, after noticing how constant scrolling rattled the nervous system. Early days felt light: reconnecting with camp friends, checking in on old classmates, real conversations without the masks of youth. Then the shift came. The feed thinned out the good stuff and filled with friends-of-friends saying awful things, memes that needed translation and an endless stream of ads.
At the same time, wider downsides of social platforms—privacy concerns, bots and trolls, and the way some users become disinhibited—became hard to ignore. Foreign interference in elections added to the unease.
Research on social media’s mental-health impact suggests effects vary by how people use it (active posting vs passive scrolling), time spent, age and gender. Still, the trend is familiar to many: heavier use often correlates with feeling worse.
A longitudinal study published in 2017 found overall use of a major social platform was negatively associated with wellbeing. Another older study in young adults linked more use with lower mood over time.
What changed after deleting a social platform
After stepping away from a major social platform—even before deactivating the account—the shifts in body and mind were almost immediate: deeper breathing, better focus and less preoccupation with people outside real-life circles. Mood felt lighter and irritability eased. Anxiety did not vanish, yet there seemed far less to be anxious about.
Some connections were missed at first, and email details were shared before going dark, but within a couple of weeks those relationships faded from daily thought unless people reached out. The instant rush from early-days likes and comments was also missed, and there were worries about not being able to share articles or post for work. Over time, those proved to be non-issues.
A 2020 study reported that people who deactivated a social account for four weeks consumed less news. That did not apply here, as news habits shifted elsewhere. The same study found the month-long break left participants less politically polarised.
What the experts say
The strain came from knowing and yet not really knowing so many people going through so much at once. Expert Don Grant says rapid-fire feeds are “absolutely dysregulating” to the brain and emotions. As posts fly past, the brain tries to reason with what it sees but cannot keep up, so the autonomic nervous system takes over.
A single scroll might bring an upsetting post, a polarising take, then a “new job” celebration. “Your brain is being flooded with neurotransmitters,” says Grant—dopamine if something is rewarding, noradrenaline and adrenaline if it’s activating, cortisol if it’s stressful—with serotonin trying to restore balance. Within minutes that chemical whiplash can trigger a physical response: hunched shoulders, clenched fists, a racing heart.
Endless exposure to others’ grief and shock can also carve away at wellbeing. “This is what I call estranged vicarious sadness,” says psychiatrist Dr Anna Lembke. “The strange experience of feeling that we should feel sad about another person’s plight, despite the fact that we can’t see them or touch them and may not even know them, juxtaposed against our own experience which may be very different.” She notes multiple studies link consuming bad news online with higher anxiety, even if switching off risks missing information.
Grant worries that overexposure can numb feeling altogether. “We’re being inured to death and sickness,” he says, as posts about loss and crisis sit beside cute pets and party photos. Lembke adds that constant emotional toggling “stretches the limits of human empathy,” and over time “we don’t feel anything at all.”
Volume adds to the load. Humans seem wired for a limited social circle. Drawing on work that relates neocortex size to group size, Robin Dunbar’s analysis suggests about 150 meaningful connections. A recent look at modern networks found users averaged roughly 149 “friends” on one large platform, though other studies put it closer to 340. Either way, says Lembke, today’s frictionless, geography-free exchanges create far more interactions than at any point in history, many of them trivial, each demanding a slice of attention that, in aggregate, drains energy.
Online disinhibition worsens the impact. Algorithms reward engagement, so sharp-edged comments surface more often. Because people feel they “know” their online acquaintances, those barbs can sting more than if they came from strangers. In person, Grant says, social cues help sort who merits deeper connection. Online, recommendations and easy friend requests bypass that filter.
What was learned from giving up the platform
Stepping away brought noticeable benefits: greater calm, more focus and more time, with fewer triggers for anxiety. The upside was liking people again for who they are offline, without the distortion of their online persona. “Our online personas lack the nuance of real people. We become avatars, more two-dimensional than we really are,” says Lembke. “We’re all a mixture of good and bad, but social media freezes us into these extremes, and social media exploits the extremes as clickbait.”
With the account closed, there’s little desire to return apart from a touch of nostalgia for the gentler feeds of 2009.
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