Social Media and Mental Health: Connected but Unsettled

By Eimear Quigley, Clinical Psychologist

In a world first, Australia “banned” social media in under 16-year-olds in December 2025. This raised an ongoing debate in our world about whether social media is a good, or bad thing. Many people view social media platforms as environments for connection and belonging, whilst others view the same platforms as breeding grounds for mental health issues like anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and self-perception. Like with most lifestyle habits, I see both sides of the pendulum, and here I hope to help you settle somewhere in the balanced middle.

Social media use in all ages can fuel status anxiety and an always-on uneasiness often described as FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). These two ideas framed my views on the dilemma of whether or not social media is “good” or “bad” for mental health. 

What is FOMO 

FOMO was first used by a Harvard Business School student in 2004 and was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013, specifically defining it as anxiety triggered by the sense that interesting events are happening elsewhere. There is no doubt that streams of social media posts, which enable people to share real-time, instant information about events that other people are not attending, is fuelling FOMO around the world. 

What is “status anxiety”? 

“We are in danger of failing to confirm to the ideals of success laid down by our society”

(de Botton, 2004).

The term status anxiety has been around for a little while longer than FOMO, rising to stardom in the psychology world in the 2004 book, Status Anxiety, by Alain do Botton. De Botton helps us to recognise how modern society makes us anxious about how we rank socially, and how this fear of being perceived as unsuccessful and lesser-than, especially in material or achievement-based areas, affects our psychological wellbeing. 

Do Botton would have gathered his information for his book for years prior to the 2004 publication date, a time when social media did not really exist in mainstream society. What is interesting though is that his descriptions of the relationship between comparison, identity, status, and anxiety, mirror what much of what we think about with FOMO and social media.

The Upside: connection and belonging 

There is no doubt that there is a positive impact of social connectedness and belonging on social media platforms. Online connectedness is often felt more strongly in people who have moved away from their homeland. This indicates a possible link with the helpfulness of social media for people with limited local social supports, due to being able to connect with their friends and families from home. Higher scores on belongingness relate to lower scores on depression and anxiety measures. In other words, the more a person felt a sense of belonging in their lives, the less likely they were to experience mood and anxiety issues. We also know from theories of suicidality (the study of suicide) that a sense of belonging is a protective factor in suicidal experiences, whereas a thwarted sense of belonging is a risk factor in suicidal experiences. 

The Downside: getting stuck in the infinite FOMO loop, comparison, and anxiety 

Many people experience spikes in anxiety triggered by social media posts about their friends’ and family members’ achievements. Some of the themes people experience include negative self-perceptions, overwhelming feelings of demands, and a drive to compulsively check their social media platforms. Many people feel stuck between seeing the negative impact of “doom scrolling” whilst also feeling like they couldn’t stop themselves from looking to see what new things people had posted about. 

Five practical ways to keep connection and manage anxiety in social media use 

1.        Flip the scrip: Reframe 

When you feel FOMO spiking, treat your experience as a thought experiment. The thought you are experiencing is just a hypothesis. Start by “checking the facts” behind the thought. For example, instead of believing “everyone is doing better than me”, reframe this into a more helpful thought such as “this is a curated small slice of time in their life, not the whole picture of their existence”. This can often help take the sting out of the anxiety that comes from social comparisons. 

2.        Anchor to your values 

When you notice yourself thinking negatively about how you are doing in comparison to others on social media, try getting some distance between that thought and yourself. You can do this by reconnected to your values, what’s important to you, what matters. For example, instead of following your thoughts down the rabbit hole of “they’re having such a great time, and I am stuck at home alone”, ask yourself, “what am I doing that is important to me right now?”. You might find that being at home studying in order to gain your professional qualification helps you see the bigger picture of what matters to you. 

3.        Find ways to reward yourself outside of passive scrolling 

It is easy to drift onto our phones and scroll endlessly when our social media feeds literally never ends. Try to schedule in time during your day to do other activities that you find rewarding and link to your values (what’s important to you!). This could be setting a timer to read part of a book for 15 minutes (value = knowledge and curiosity), doing ten minutes of stretching (value = exercise), or ringing a friend or family member to chat about their day (value = connection). Doing things that help us feel good has an ongoing positive domino effect on our mood. 

4.        Activate your own inner friend through self-compassion 

There is one person who you can always rely on to make you feel better about yourself – you. Although this might sound odd, especially when we are also experts at criticising and judging ourselves, self-compassion is a muscle that we can build on every day. When you notice negative unhelpful comparison thoughts arising, try saying to yourself, “I am feeling sad. It is okay to feel sad, everyone feels sad sometimes. I can be my own friend and show kindness to myself in this moment”. This building of self-compassion can help to reduce the vulnerability to the emotional sting of our negative thoughts. 

5.        Play around with your schedule and be your own detective 

Test out different ways of approaching social media. For example, you might track your sleep, mood and stress levels over a few weeks and modify how much or how little social media time you have each day. See if you see a relationship between time on your phone and how your psychological state. If you can see the impact, you can change the impact. 

Conclusion 

Social media use shows us the struggle between wanting to stay connected and feel a sense of belonging, whilst also experiencing distress and anxiety because of constant comparison and FOMO. Although the ideas behind status anxiety were not based on social media use, we can see the relationship quite clearly between feeling anxious because of social media comparisons, feeling left out and even just being afraid of being excluded, rejected, or judged. Try some of the tips above if you are feeling stuck with your social media use. If we can find ways to use social media to feed connection and relationships rather than drain self-esteem and happiness, we find can find balance and equilibrium.