Remember when we called it the information superhighway? That is what it was, back when the internet first showed up. The deal felt simple: you logged on, looked things up, learned something, and left. Now, the feed can reach past your willpower and into your social media nervous system response before you even realize what happened.
Doomscrolling
Vicarious trauma
Attention boundaries
In this blog
And then something happened.
The superhighway became a supermarket. Everything is for sale now. The cost is not just money. It can be your emotional energy, your time, your relationships, your sanity, your regulation, and your ability to sit in a quiet room for five minutes without reaching for the glowing rectangle in your pocket.
Let us talk about what happened, why it matters, why it is not your fault, and what it can look like to get your ground back.
Key insight
The problem is not that you are weak. A social media nervous system response often begins because the feed is designed to bypass reflection and keep the body on alert.
Two Different Harms, One Nervous System
When we talk about “media,” we usually mash together two very different things your body has to deal with.
There is a clinical name for what can happen when we are exposed to suffering that is not ours over and over: vicarious trauma or secondary traumatic stress. In a study on media-induced secondary trauma during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lamba et al. (2023) explored how repeated media exposure can affect mental health during collective crises. This used to be something we talked about mostly with therapists, nurses, and first responders. Now, thanks to smartphones, many more people are exposed to other people’s pain again and again.
Both streams, the addictive and the disturbing, move through the same nervous system. That is the part most people miss.
Your Body Does Not Know It Is Just a Phone
Your nervous system was built for real threats. The kind that show up, get handled, and go away. It does not know what TikTok is. It cannot tell the difference between a bear and a shaky video of a bombing. It cannot tell the difference between friends laughing at your joke and bots boosting a stranger’s comment section.
It reacts to what it sees. Every time.
Heart rate up. Chest tight. Breath shallow. Cortisol dumping. That is supposed to happen briefly: burst, resolve, safety. But scrolling breaks that rhythm. Threat, threat, threat. Comparison, comparison, comparison. No resolution. No off switch. No “it is over now.”
Your body may think you are still in the woods with the bear, hours after you put the phone down.
And the research keeps piling up:
- A systematic review and meta-analysis found that problematic social media use is linked to higher rates of depression, anxiety, and stress in adolescents and young adults (Shannon et al., 2022).
- A meta-analysis linked use of social networking sites with self-reported depressive symptoms, with particular concerns around passive or comparison-based use (Vahedi & Zannella, 2021).
- The World Health Organization reported that problematic social media use among teens rose from 7% in 2018 to 11% in 2022, alongside lower overall well-being (WHO, 2024).
- Excessive screen time has been discussed in relation to changes in brain structure, sleep disruption, attention, and stress regulation (Stanford Lifestyle Medicine, 2024).
So no, it is not just you. It is not only in your head. A social media nervous system response can show up in the body, and it is measurable in sleep, attention, mood, and tension.
A grounded way to think about trauma exposure
If distressing content keeps following you into sleep, relationships, work, or your body, it may help to learn more about how trauma can shape nervous system responses.
What It Looks Like When It Is Wearing You Down
The harm builds slowly. That is why most people do not connect the dots. They just notice something is off.
See if any of this lands:
A quick self-check
- Sleep that does not feel like rest, even when you get eight hours.
- A low hum of worry that eases the second you pick up your phone and comes right back when you put it down.
- Things that used to bring joy feel oddly flat.
- You cannot sit with your own thoughts for more than a minute without reaching for something.
- Cycles of anger and guilt leave you drained.
- Bitterness creeps into places it did not used to live.
- Comparison makes your actual life feel smaller than it is.
- Tension gathers somewhere in your body: jaw, shoulders, stomach, chest.
If a few of those hit, you are not broken. You are a person responding the way a person is supposed to respond to a world you were never built to absorb at this speed.
Change the Design, Not Just the Behavior
Here is the trap. People try to use willpower against apps built to get past willpower.
Guess who wins that fight.
The move is not to try harder. It is to change the design.
When self-kindness helps the reset stick
A feed boundary works better when it is not fueled by shame. If your inner critic gets loud, this GoodTherapy article on self-compassion and the inner critic may be a useful companion.
Try this now: 5-4-3-2-1
Name five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can feel, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste.
This does not erase the content you saw. It helps your body locate the present moment, which is the only place safety can register.
Put Your Own Oxygen Mask On First
There is a reason flight attendants tell you to secure your own mask before helping the person next to you. A person who has run out of air cannot help anyone else breathe.
Research on caregivers points to a similar reality. Compassion fatigue and burnout are serious concerns among health care professionals, and ongoing research continues to examine how overexposure to distress and depleted regulation can affect people who care for others (Capobianco dos Santos et al., 2025).
Stepping back from media is not selfish. It is not giving up either. It is what lets you stay connected to the people and causes you love without becoming a casualty of the feed.
Support can make the pattern easier to change
If social media nervous system stress is affecting your sleep, relationships, or sense of safety, you can find a therapist through GoodTherapy and talk through what is happening without shame. If you are unsure where to start, GoodTherapy’s guide to finding the right therapist can help you think through fit.
What Comes Back
People who try this often notice the same thing. The first week is weird. Quieter than expected. Sometimes a little lonely. You may pick up your phone out of habit and put it back down. That is not relapse. That is recalibration.
Then something shifts. Sleep gets deeper. Thoughts come back online. Creativity sneaks in. Conversations go longer. The body settles into a kind of safety it had not felt in a long time.
You do not have to throw your phone in the ocean. You just have to stop letting it think for you. Your attention is one of the most valuable things you have. You are allowed to protect it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about feed stress, body cues, and getting help.
References
| Capobianco dos Santos, C. G., Santos Neto, M. F., Carvalho, S. R. P. V. T., Furlani, M. R., Martins, C. C., Santos, E. R., Menezes, J. D. S., Silva, M. Q., Santos, L. L., Molina, T. C., Castro, N. A. A. S. R., Cristóvão, H., Santos Júnior, R., Brienze, V. M. S., Lima, A. R. A., Fucuta, P. D., Vaz-Oliani, D., Domingos, N. A., Miyazaki, M. C., . . . André, J. C. (2025). Compassion fatigue and burnout among health care professionals: Protocol for a scoping review. JMIR Research Protocols, 14, e66360. https://doi.org/10.2196/66360 | |
| Lamba, N., Khokhlova, O., Bhatia, A., & McHugh, C. (2023). Mental health hygiene during a health crisis: Exploring factors associated with media-induced secondary trauma in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Health Psychology Open, 10(2). doi: 10.1177/20551029231199578 | |
| Shannon, H., Bush, K., Villeneuve, P. J., Hellemans, K. G. C., & Guimond, S. (2022). Problematic social media use in adolescents and young adults: Systematic review and meta-analysis. JMIR Mental Health, 9(4), e33450. https://doi.org/10.2196/33450 | |
| Stanford Lifestyle Medicine. (2024). What excessive screen time does to the adult brain. | |
| Vahedi, Z., & Zannella, L. (2021). The association between self-reported depressive symptoms and the use of social networking sites (SNS): A meta-analysis. Current Psychology, 40(5), 2174-2189. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-0150-6 | |
| World Health Organization. (2024). Teens, screens and mental health. |
Protecting Your Attention Is Care
If your feed keeps leaving your body on alert, support can help you sort through what is being activated and what needs to change.
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About the Author Griffin OakleyMSCP, NCC, LMHC, LPC Griffin Oakley, MSCP, NCC, LMHC, LPC, is a licensed therapist specializing in trauma, CPTSD, attachment, and identity work. His work focuses on helping adults make sense of overwhelming inner experiences with more steadiness, self-understanding, and practical support. He provides telehealth therapy to adults throughout Florida through Curious Mind Counseling, where he supports clients navigating trauma recovery, nervous system stress, and relationship patterns. |
The preceding article was solely written by the author named above. Any views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the preceding article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment below.
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