When work was drying up for freelance author Megan Carnegie, she discovered herself compulsively hopping between apps and social media. “LinkedIn, WhatsApp, emails—and it was simply horrible for my focus,” she says. “I used to be anxious about getting work.”
On a whim, Carnegie (who’s also contributed to Fast Company) popped right into a retailer promoting secondhand pc tools and acquired an outdated Nokia burner telephone. Throughout the workday, she would use the burner for calls, and within the night, change again to her smartphone. With no entry to apps and one fewer technique to entry the web, her urgency and nervousness dissolved. “I simply beloved the quiet,” she says.
The results of social media on psychological well being have been a preferred matter of dialog in 2025. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s best-selling ebook, The Anxious Era, describes the results on adolescents, together with being a big contributor to anxiety and depression among young adults.
What’s less-frequently studied is the way it impacts folks at work. However a brand new report begins to show how what we see on-line can bleed into our skilled lives.
The new study out of Rutgers College, revealed within the Journal of Organizational Conduct, discovered that what you see on social media whereas at work can form your temper, motivation—even the way you deal with your coworkers.
Social media’s impact in your work
Researchers surveyed 133 employees twice a day for 2 weeks. They requested them to explain essentially the most “salient,” or memorable, submit they noticed that day, then describe how they felt and the way productive they had been at work. Later, the survey was repeated with 141 new individuals, this time together with their coworkers, who would additionally charge the themes’ habits and productivity.
The researchers segmented posts into 4 classes: enticing (thirst traps), household (youngsters’ first day in school), contentious (politics or rage bait), and achieved (job promotions). They then measured how these content material sorts affected staff’ self-assurance, nervousness, productiveness, and social withdrawal.
They discovered that whereas posts about household or pals have a tendency to spice up confidence, political rants spike nervousness and make folks withdraw. Posts about accomplishments can both spur you or kill your drive, relying in your persona. These with aggressive natures are vulnerable to feeling motivated by achievement-related content material, whereas those that aren’t significantly aggressive usually tend to really feel demotivated.
The outcomes point out that some employees may profit from limiting their social media use at work. However for these whose job entails frequently scrolling social feeds, breaking the behavior can show troublesome.
The LinkedIn star who barely scrolls, and the PR one that simply can’t assist it
Alison Taylor is an writer and professor at New York College’s Stern Faculty of Enterprise who writes about company ethics. Regardless of being named a LinkedIn “superuser” by the Financial Times due to her greater than 60,000 followers, she spends little or no time on the platform.
“I get up, I’ve espresso, I write the submit, I don’t fear about it being good, I appropriate typos later,” she says.
Taylor is aware of higher than to feed the trolls, however she loves a great argument, and might’t assist however reply to some followers who needle her. Whereas she may come again all through the day to remark, she goes in and will get out rapidly. It’s not well worth the distraction.
As for these whose job entails spending time on social media—like PR reps, marketers, and social media managers—the stress will be inescapable. Some 77% of people that work in social media are burned out, says a reader survey by Rachel Karten, who writes the favored Hyperlink in Bio Substack e-newsletter.
Nicholas Budler, who works in public relations for enterprise tech corporations, scopes alternatives for his shoppers all day.
“The LinkedIn doomscroll has solely gotten extra infinite for me. And it’s open at work 9-to-5,” he says, noting that when engagement is excessive, it feels good. However when it’s not, he questions whether or not social media is price his time in any respect.
“I believe you get a bit burdened usually to have social media open at work,” Budler says. Whereas he used to do plenty of social media technique for shoppers, he does much less and fewer as of late, saying, “I contemplate it mind rot.”
Doomscrolling can carry Budler down “a deep, darkish rabbit gap of trying by means of folks’s job updates and information. And plenty of that information isn’t good, proper? Particularly in media, there are plenty of layoffs,” he says. These go away him anxious.
Chopping again on ingrained habits
The nervousness and malaise social media could cause is a standard drawback: In a single small survey by the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, 45% of adults reported being burdened no less than as soon as every week due to social media, and 16% reported being burdened each day. Frequent social media use has already been linked to increased irritability in adults, in addition to worsened depression.
Some researchers have even submitted the concept of “meta-stress,” that’s, stressing in regards to the stress generated by social media.
That’s made worse by the truth that most adults within the U.S. use social media: 68% use Fb, 83% use YouTube, and 47% use Instagram, in keeping with the Pew Research Center. But there’s cash to be made in maintaining folks away from these platforms.
Apps like Freedom, AppBlock, and SelfControl block entry to sure apps for intervals of time. Some can’t be disabled till a set timer expires. Many employees instructed Quick Firm that they depend on these apps to maintain them from doomscrolling.
However even these instruments will not be sufficient to chop again on deeply ingrained habits. Budler is a prolific social media person in his private life, with accounts on Instagram, the working app Strava, studying platform Goodreads, and TikTok, the latter of which he says is most addictive. His newest screen-time report on his telephone recorded simply over 20 hours on his telephone up to now week, with 9 of these hours on social media.
Rebecca Greenbaum, a coauthor of the Rutgers research, isn’t towards social media. “I believe it may be a enjoyable break. It may be a helpful break. It will possibly add interestingness to an individual’s day,” she says.
However to keep away from the senseless, computerized scroll, deal with it just like the smoke break of the Nineteen Eighties, she says. Rise up out of your desk, go elsewhere, and dedicate a restricted period of time.
It’s a method that works for Megan Carnegie. “I’m making an attempt to be extra intentional about how I exploit these platforms. The burner has been a great train in that. Now I’m a bit much less anxious about work.”
