Staying up past bedtime and doomscrolling TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, or any other social media platform won’t just wreck a night’s sleep for you. It can also negatively affect your brain, according to Mindy Broden, LPCC, LADC, a counselor at Sanford Health in Bemidji, Minnesota.
It’s a common concern. Half of American smartphone users – and 80% of those under 30 – worry they use their device too much, researchers report in the scientific journal PNAS Nexus. In a recent study of about 400 people, they found that blocking mobile internet for two weeks reduces smartphone use and improves subjective well-being, mental health, and sustained attention – as much as being 10 years younger.
Broden explains why.
What happens inside your online brain
She said constant digital input can increase stress, anxiety and feelings of hopelessness in two ways.
The first is the way our brains are neurologically wired.
“When we’re engaging in media, whether that’s gaming, social media, a news channel, what happens is that starts to release different chemicals in our brain. There can be a portion of it that acts similar to an addiction,” she said.
Broden, a licensed alcohol and drug counselor and licensed professional clinical counselor, calls that a process addiction, where the same neural pathways as substance use addiction are lit up.
“So, when you don’t have the media device in front of you, you can almost go into what’s likened to a withdrawal from substances. You can feel sad or more listless,” explained Broden.
The second way constant digital input can negatively impact our brains is because the brain often doesn’t know the difference between something that’s real or something that’s imagined.
“Right now, I could imagine myself in a calm place with all my favorite things, and my blood pressure would decrease and I would feel peace, calm and relaxed.
“The same thing happens when you’re watching a horror movie, right? Even though you’re not experiencing it, what you’re seeing is impacting you emotionally,” Broden said.
She said it’s the same thing with other media input.
“If all we’re watching is a 24-hour news channel where it’s doomsday, it’s going to cause us to feel irritable, helpless, frustrated, like there’s no hope. All those emotions are common because the brain can’t differentiate between something that you’re experiencing and something you’re watching.”
Why developing brains are more at risk
Broden said too much media can negatively impact younger people even more than older people.
“Older people have more experiences in life and have things they can compare it to, as well as other developed brain pathways for coping versus the underdeveloped pathways of youth’s brains.
“For instance, when 9/11 happened, that was the first thing that occurred to me on a national scale. But for my older relatives, they had all lived through Pearl Harbor. They knew we would get through this.”
Younger kids might not know how to handle negative news stories because of less life experience. They also may have trouble with self-control, problem solving and emotional regulation due to their prefrontal cortex not fully formed until their 20s, according to Broden.
“So, they just keep going with it and going with it and going with it,” Broden said. “I would say that’s probably the importance of parents to be able to set some of those limitations on their children.”
What are signs of consuming too much media?
Unfortunately, it’s similar to addiction, said Broden:
Mood changes and mood swings
Feelings of helplessness
Feelings of anger
Negative impact on one’s life and relationships
Disconnection or isolation
“Mental health therapy is a treatment option because being able to talk about those things and figuring out how you’re thinking about them would be an important step, or if it’s even triggering from past experiences,” said Broden.
She said in therapy, she teaches patients about the circle of control.
“Inside the circle is what you can control. The second set of the circle looks like a bullseye, and that is things that you can influence. The third is the things you have no control over whatsoever.
“A lot of times the media that we’re consuming are things in that third set of the circle,” she explained.
How to balance well-being with being well-informed
One of the first things Broden recommended was to monitor your source of information and only get your news from reputable news sources.
“Gone are the days of old media where we had 30 minutes of news reporting in the evening time. We have 24-hour news channels that are competing against each other,” she said.
She recommended setting time limits for yourself and your loved ones.
She also said an intermediate media fast, where you don’t consume any media at all, can be helpful.
“Make sure that you’re connecting with other people in person. Even though we feel more connected through media, it actually serves as a bigger buffer for isolation. It can become a detriment because it is very isolating,” she said.
Setting media-free areas in one’s living space, like the dinner table, is also something she recommended, as well as putting your phone or tablet away from the bed.
“That way I’m not just sitting there scrolling, or when I wake up the next day, I don’t just reach for my phone right away.”
Find help through integrated health therapists at Sanford Health.
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Behavioral Health, Bemidji, Family Medicine, Healthy Living, Internal Medicine