APA Citation
Beyens, I., Frison, E., & Eggermont, S. (2020). "Don't Stress, Just Scroll": Social Media Use, FOMO, and Stress. *Computers in Human Behavior*, 106, 106270. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.106270
Summary
This research demonstrated that passive social media use—scrolling without posting or engaging—elevates cortisol levels, producing the same HPA axis activation pattern observed in children with insecure attachment. The study reveals that the stress response that should be buffered by secure relationships is instead chronically triggered by algorithmic feeds designed to maximize anxiety-driven engagement. FOMO (fear of missing out) emerges from unmet psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Social media doesn't create this hunger but exploits it relentlessly, offering the appearance of relatedness while delivering only its simulation. The parallels between digital platform effects and attachment trauma effects illuminate how social media can produce trauma-like stress responses.
Why This Matters for Survivors
For survivors of narcissistic abuse, this research validates that social media stress is physiologically real—not weakness or oversensitivity. The cortisol elevation from passive scrolling mirrors the chronic stress of insecure attachment many survivors experienced in childhood with narcissistic parents. Understanding that algorithms are designed to trigger your stress response helps explain why "just scroll" advice fails—you're not lacking willpower; you're fighting systems engineered to exploit the psychological vulnerabilities that narcissistic abuse created.
What This Research Found
Passive use elevates cortisol. Beyens and colleagues demonstrated that passive social media use—scrolling without engagement—elevates cortisol levels. This isn’t subjective stress report but physiological measurement: the body’s stress hormone system activates in response to passive consumption of social media content. The stress is real, not imagined or exaggerated.
HPA axis activation parallels insecure attachment. The cortisol elevation pattern resembles that observed in children with insecure attachment. In both cases, the HPA axis that should be buffered by secure relationships instead remains chronically activated. Secure attachment provides stress buffering; insecure attachment leaves the stress system unregulated. Social media produces similar dysregulation—the simulation of connection without its stress-buffering benefits.
FOMO reflects genuine psychological needs. Drawing on self-determination theory, the researchers explain FOMO as emerging from unmet needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The fear isn’t neurotic but reflects genuine psychological hunger. When basic needs go unsatisfied, people become hypervigilant to others’ experiences, fearing exclusion from rewards. Social media amplifies this by providing constant windows into curated highlights of others’ lives.
Algorithmic exploitation of vulnerability. The research implications extend to platform design: algorithms optimized for engagement effectively optimize for anxiety. Content that triggers FOMO, comparison, and worry drives more engagement than content that produces satisfaction. Users’ psychological vulnerabilities become features the algorithm exploits, not bugs it avoids. The platform succeeds when users are stressed enough to keep scrolling.
Why This Matters for Survivors
Your stress response is real. If you’ve felt that social media makes you anxious, this research validates your experience physiologically. The cortisol elevation means your body is responding to genuine threat signals—not that you’re weak, oversensitive, or unable to handle what others handle. Your stress system is activating because it’s being triggered by designed stimuli.
Insecure attachment makes you more vulnerable. Survivors of narcissistic abuse often developed insecure attachment from childhood experiences with narcissistic parents, or from adult abuse that dysregulated previously secure attachment. This pre-existing vulnerability makes social media’s effects worse. The platform exploits the wounds that narcissistic abuse created, elevating already-dysregulated stress systems further.
“Just don’t scroll” misses the mechanism. Well-meaning advice to simply use social media less ignores how the stress-seeking cycle works. Anxiety drives scrolling as an attempt to soothe; scrolling produces more anxiety; more anxiety drives more scrolling. Breaking this cycle isn’t a matter of willpower alone—it requires understanding the mechanism and developing alternatives that actually buffer stress.
The hunger social media exploits is real. FOMO reflects genuine unmet needs for connection, competence, and autonomy. Survivors of narcissistic abuse often have these needs chronically unmet—denied autonomy by controlling parents, competence undermined by criticism, relatedness substituted with conditional love. Social media promises to meet these needs but delivers only simulation. Understanding this helps redirect seeking toward sources that actually satisfy.
Clinical Implications
Assess social media patterns. Clients’ social media use may contribute to stress symptoms clinicians are treating. Assessment should include: time spent, passive versus active use, subjective experience during and after use, and whether patterns suggest compulsive engagement. The cortisol findings suggest this assessment has physiological as well as psychological relevance.
Connect to attachment history. For clients with insecure attachment histories, social media’s effects may compound pre-existing stress dysregulation. Clinicians can help clients understand this connection: the platform is triggering the same stress system that was never properly buffered by early relationships. This understanding supports both platform boundaries and broader attachment work.
Address FOMO’s psychological roots. FOMO isn’t platform-specific; it emerges from unmet needs that social media exploits but didn’t create. Clinicians can work on the underlying needs—autonomy, competence, relatedness—while also addressing the platform behaviors that exploit them. Meeting needs through genuine connection reduces FOMO regardless of social media use.
Support alternative stress buffering. If social media elevates cortisol rather than buffering it, clients need genuine stress-buffering relationships and activities. Clinicians can help clients identify and strengthen connections that actually calm the stress system—not simulations of connection that activate it further.
Normalize difficulty with digital boundaries. Clients may feel weak for struggling with social media compulsion. Understanding the biological mechanisms—cortisol, variable reward, anxiety-engagement cycles—can reduce shame while supporting change. The difficulty isn’t character flaw; it’s designed exploitation of normal psychological processes.
Broader Implications
Platform Design Responsibility
If algorithms are optimized for engagement, and engagement is driven by anxiety, then platforms are effectively optimized to stress users. This raises questions about design responsibility: Should platforms be required to optimize for wellbeing rather than engagement? What would that look like? Beyens’ research provides evidence for policy discussions about platform accountability.
Mental Health Public Policy
The biological stress effects of social media have public health implications, particularly for young people whose stress systems are still developing. Mental health policy should address social media’s role in stress-related conditions, potentially including warning labels, usage guidelines, or regulatory requirements for platforms.
Differential Vulnerability
Not everyone is equally affected by social media. People with pre-existing anxiety, depression, attachment wounds, or unmet psychological needs are more vulnerable. This suggests that universal recommendations miss the point; some populations need more protection than others. Policy and education should address differential vulnerability.
The Simulation Problem
Beyens’ finding that social media provides the appearance of relatedness without its stress-buffering benefits illuminates a broader problem: simulation of human needs without satisfaction. This has implications beyond social media to virtual reality, AI companions, and other technologies that promise connection without delivering its biological benefits.
Self-Determination Theory Applications
The research extends self-determination theory to digital contexts. Understanding that FOMO emerges from unmet needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness suggests interventions: meeting these needs genuinely reduces FOMO regardless of platform behavior. This has implications for education, workplace design, and relationship support.
Adolescent Development
Adolescents are heavy social media users during a critical period for stress system and social development. If passive use elevates cortisol and fails to provide genuine social benefit, the implications for adolescent mental health are significant. This research supports growing concern about social media’s effects on young people specifically.
Limitations and Considerations
Correlation and causation complexity. While the research measured cortisol elevation during passive use, the direction of causation remains debated. Does passive use cause stress, or do stressed people passively scroll? Likely both, creating feedback loops that are difficult to study cleanly.
Individual differences. Not everyone responds to social media identically. Personality, attachment history, current stress levels, and platform specifics all moderate effects. The research identifies general patterns; individual experiences vary considerably.
Platform and context variations. Effects may vary across platforms (Instagram versus Twitter versus TikTok), usage contexts (work versus leisure), and content types (news versus personal updates). The research captures broad patterns; specific contexts require additional analysis.
Evolution of platforms. Social media platforms change rapidly. Research findings from any period may not apply to later platform versions, algorithm changes, or new platforms. Understanding mechanisms helps more than snapshot findings.
How This Research Is Used in the Book
This research is cited in Chapter 13: The Great Accelerant to explain the physiological effects of passive social media use:
“Passive social media use—scrolling without posting—elevates cortisol levels, producing the same HPA axis activation pattern observed in children with insecure attachment. The stress response that should be buffered by secure relationships is instead chronically triggered by algorithmic feeds designed to maximise anxiety-driven engagement.”
The citation supports the book’s analysis of how social media exploits psychological vulnerabilities, particularly those created or exacerbated by narcissistic abuse.
Historical Context
Beyens’ 2020 study appeared during a period of intensifying research into social media’s mental health effects. Earlier work had established correlations between social media use and negative outcomes; questions remained about mechanisms. How exactly does social media produce its effects? Is the harm psychological only, or does it have biological substrates?
The cortisol finding provided biological grounding for concerns that had been dismissed as overreaction or generational misunderstanding. The stress isn’t “just in your head”—it’s measurable in your saliva. This physiological evidence shifted debates about social media harm from questions of whether harm exists to questions about mechanisms and interventions.
The study also advanced understanding by distinguishing passive from active use. Not all social media engagement is equivalent; passive scrolling is particularly harmful. This distinction has implications for both research design and practical recommendations, moving beyond “use less” to specify which uses are more or less harmful.
The connection to attachment theory added developmental depth: the stress system that social media dysregulates was supposed to be regulated through early relationships. When those relationships fail (as in narcissistic parenting), the unregulated system becomes vulnerable to platforms that trigger stress without buffering it. This integration with developmental psychology enriched understanding of who is most vulnerable and why.
Further Reading
- Przybylski, A.K., Murayama, K., DeHaan, C.R., & Gladwell, V. (2013). Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(4), 1841-1848.
- Verduyn, P., Lee, D.S., Park, J., Shablack, H., Orvell, A., Bayer, J., … & Kross, E. (2015). Passive Facebook usage undermines affective well-being. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(2), 480-488.
- Twenge, J.M., Joiner, T.E., Rogers, M.L., & Martin, G.N. (2018). Increases in depressive symptoms, suicide-related outcomes, and suicide rates among US adolescents after 2010 and links to increased new media screen time. Clinical Psychological Science, 6(1), 3-17.
- Ryan, R.M., & Deci, E.L. (2017). Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness. Guilford Press.
- Lieberman, M.D. (2013). Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect. Crown.
About the Author
Ine Beyens, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Amsterdam School of Communication Research at the University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on the effects of media use on psychological well-being, particularly among adolescents and young adults.
Beyens' work combines communication science with psychology and neuroscience, examining how digital media affects stress, mood, and social development. Her research on FOMO and social media stress has influenced understanding of how platform design affects mental health.
She is part of a generation of researchers examining social media effects with rigorous methodology and nuanced attention to individual differences, moving beyond simplistic "social media is bad" narratives to understand specific mechanisms and populations.
Historical Context
Published in 2020, this study appeared during a period of intensifying concern about social media's mental health effects, particularly among young people. Earlier research had established correlations between social media use and negative outcomes; Beyens and colleagues contributed mechanistic understanding—how does social media produce these effects? The cortisol finding provided physiological evidence that the harm was biological, not merely psychological.
Frequently Asked Questions
Passive social media use means scrolling, viewing, and consuming content without posting, commenting, or actively engaging. Research consistently finds passive use more harmful than active use. Active engagement (posting, commenting, messaging) provides some of the social benefits that make social media attractive. Passive scrolling provides none of those benefits while exposing users to social comparison, curated highlight reels, and anxiety-provoking content—all without any reciprocal connection.
Cortisol is the body's primary stress hormone, released by the HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) axis in response to threat. Short-term cortisol elevation prepares the body for challenge. Chronic elevation—from ongoing stress without resolution—damages health: impaired immune function, disrupted sleep, cognitive effects, and increased anxiety and depression. The finding that passive scrolling elevates cortisol means it triggers genuine physiological stress response, not merely subjective discomfort.
Children with insecure attachment show chronically elevated cortisol because their caregivers don't provide the emotional buffering that regulates stress. The secure attachment relationship calms the child's stress system; without it, the system stays activated. Beyens' research found that passive social media use produces similar cortisol patterns—the stress response that should be buffered by relationships is instead chronically triggered by feeds designed to maximize engagement through anxiety.
FOMO—fear of missing out—is apprehension that others are having rewarding experiences from which one is absent. Beyens draws on self-determination theory: FOMO emerges from unmet needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The fear isn't irrational; it reflects genuine psychological hunger. Social media doesn't create this hunger but exploits it, offering the appearance of relatedness while delivering only simulation. The hunger persists because the food is fake.
Several factors: the same stress response that makes scrolling harmful also makes it compulsive (anxiety seeks soothing, even ineffective soothing). Social media provides variable reward that creates addiction-like patterns. Social pressure and professional necessity may require platform presence. And the unmet needs driving FOMO don't disappear when the phone is put down—they reassert themselves, driving return to the platform that promises but doesn't deliver relief.
Algorithms are optimized for engagement, and anxiety drives engagement effectively. Content that triggers FOMO, social comparison, outrage, or worry keeps users on the platform longer than content that produces satisfaction. The algorithm doesn't intend harm; it optimizes for the metric it's given. But when engagement is the metric, anxiety-producing content wins. Users' psychological vulnerabilities become algorithmic targets.
Yes. People with pre-existing anxiety, depression, or unmet attachment needs are more vulnerable to social media harm. Survivors of narcissistic abuse—who often have chronic stress dysregulation and attachment wounds—may be particularly susceptible. The platform exploits vulnerabilities that narcissistic abuse created. This isn't victim-blaming; it's explaining why survivors may find social media particularly distressing.
Survivors often already have dysregulated stress responses from chronic childhood stress or adult abuse. Social media may further dysregulate what's already damaged. Understanding this biological mechanism can support boundaries: limiting passive use, recognizing that difficulty stopping isn't weakness but exploited vulnerability, and prioritizing relationships that actually buffer stress over platforms that simulate connection while elevating cortisol.