Social media has a dark side. It has transformed how we connect, share, and engage with the world, but beneath its promise of connection lies a complex web of emotional, psychological, and societal hazards. Too much time scrolling can lead to serious mental and emotional impacts that leave people feeling unbalanced, reactive, or disconnected. If you’ve ever slammed your laptop shut or thrown down in anger over a post that got under your skin, you know exactly what I mean. And it’s not an accident. These platforms are designed to exploit our vulnerabilities and manipulate our emotions, often in ways that benefit advertisers, political actors, and platform shareholders at the expense of users’ wellbeing.
For four years, I mostly disconnected from social media after realizing how severely it was poisoning my relationships and daily routine. The relentless cycle of overstated opinions, unnecessary stands, and judgmental, outrage-provoking memes had turned platforms once meant for connection into battlegrounds of subtle hostility. I was exhausted by the endless stream of crude political arguments and the constant virtue-signaling of people turning their feeds into stages for performative posturing in the service of their egos. Worse, I was caught up in it, too, and had come to feel my own authenticity and in-person relationships were suffering as a result.
These behaviors, amplified by algorithms designed to provoke irrational responses, transformed people I cared about into adversaries in ways that felt both unnatural and depleting. While many people may not have felt the need to completely unplug under the same circumstances, I felt the only way to really escape the cycle at the time was for me to delete most of my social accounts—which is exactly what I did. Stepping away from social media allowed me to reclaim a sense of peace and perspective, reminding me of the importance of fostering genuine, unmediated relationships and reflecting on how to engage more authentically. The long break allowed me to reset and reorient when I finally returned a few months ago.
Commercial Exploitation and Manipulation
Social media platforms are not neutral environments. They are commercial spaces meticulously designed to harvest and monetize user data, tracking every click, tap, like, and pause to create detailed profiles of their users. These platforms use this data to make it easier for advertisers and political actors to target specific demographics, exploiting their psychological vulnerabilities. This commercial exploitation is the financial backbone of the internet. It’s not necessarily bad, but the entire system is constructed to make money and these businesses do not have your wellness at heart.
Advertisers and political organizations use this system to deliver hyper-targeted messages that provoke emotional responses. A beauty company might exploit insecurities by showing ads that leave you longing for youth and glamor, while political campaigns and even foreign adversaries use fear-based messaging and even completely fabricated stories to manipulate your opinions. Algorithms amplify this by reinforcing content that aligns with user behavior, creating echo chambers that deepen emotional manipulation and narrow perspectives (Haidt & Twenge, 2021). Together, these factors undermine the community connection so essential to healthy, integrated wellbeing.
This form of manipulation not only undermines your behavioral autonomy but also destabilizes your emotional wellbeing. Users find themselves reacting impulsively to content carefully calculated to provoke reactions, rather than engaging thoughtfully and sincerely from a place of self-awareness and control (Turkle, 2017). In this highly addictive environment of constant manipulation, it’s important to understand the forces at work on your psyche and take steps to protect yourself and your authenticity.
Comparison, Envy, and Validation
While systemic manipulation plays a significant role in social media decentering, personal struggles with comparison and validation amplify its effects. Social media feeds are teeming with curated content, where users showcase idealized versions of their lives. From fancy restaurants and glamorous vacations to career milestones, these highlight reels add up over time to create an unattainable standard of success and happiness in our minds. It can lead us to feel we’re not doing as much or as well as we should, and it typically leads us to respond by filling our feeds with our own curated highlights in response.
When we compare our everyday experiences to these manicured images, feelings of inadequacy and envy often arise. The pursuit of validation through likes, shares, and comments further exacerbates the issue, fostering a cycle of external approval that can erode authentic self-expression (Chou & Edge, 2012). Over time, this dynamic can leave us emotionally drained and disconnected from our inner values.
Often these feelings of envy are accompanied and compounded by guilt. We may feel jealousy instead of genuine happiness for that old schoolmate who just bought that new home and whose life appear so perfect. We may resent that update about a former colleague’s recent promotion, wishing it were happening for us. The one-two punch of envy and guilt can feel particularly deflating when you’re struggling to keep up with the demands of your own daily life.
Societal Impacts of Personal Decentering
On a macro scale, the effects of social media decentering extend beyond individual users, shaping societal dynamics in profound ways. Disinformation and polarizing content, amplified by algorithms, deepen societal divides and erode trust in institutions. The platforms that once promised to foster community and understanding now often serve as breeding grounds for division and mistrust.
We all have that relative or friend whose feed is almost nothing but political memes. Post after post of subtly annoying images accompanied by outrage-inducing text, undergirded by half-considered likes and comments. It doesn’t matter where on the political spectrum that post sits, the format is basically the same because it works in almost any case.
Whether it’s about freeloaders getting away with not paying their share or extremists on that other side being so unreasonable, the overall structure is designed to bypass rationality and empathy and elicit staunch agreement from those inside the bubble or anger counterargument from those outside it. Either way, it’s good for the platform’s quarterly earnings and bad for your mental health. Research shows that prolonged social media use is associated with increased anxiety, depression, and feelings of inadequacy (Haidt & Twenge, 2021). These challenges make it harder for people and communities to engage constructively, and they undermine our collective well-being by stoking anger and partisanship and supplanting meaningful dialogue with self-righteous rage.
Taking Back Control
Although the decentering influence of social media is a pervasive problem, there are ways to counter its effects and regain balance. Here are a few things you can do to help retain your center and your agency when it all gets to feel like too much. You can also try this guided practice to help you consciously counter social media reactivity.
Cultivate Awareness
Understanding how social media platforms operate is a crucial first step. Recognizing that these systems are designed to exploit attention and emotions helps users approach their feeds with a critical eye. When encountering triggering content, it’s helpful to pause and reflect on the motivations behind it: Who benefits from my reaction? and How is this affecting my well-being?
Challenge Comparison and Practice Gratitude
Shifting focus away from curated highlight reels and toward personal gratitude can counter feelings of envy and inadequacy. Reflecting on the positive aspects of one’s own life fosters resilience against the distorted comparisons fostered by social media (Chou & Edge, 2012).
Engage Intentionally
Mindful engagement involves setting clear intentions before using social media. Users can ask themselves: What am I hoping to gain from this session? and How can I make this time meaningful? Approaching social media with purpose transforms it from a passive habit into a deliberate tool for connection and learning.
Incorporating Reflective Practices
Regular self-reflection helps users identify patterns in their social media use and understand its impact. Practices such as journaling, meditating, or taking intentional breaks from screens provide space to reconnect with inner values and emotional grounding. The Social Media Decentering Practices provide additional tools for pausing, recalibrating, and fostering resilience.
Unplug
Sometimes the best thing to do is just get away from your social feeds entirely. You don’t have to totally delete your account to take a break from social media for a while. You could just sign out or remove the app from your phone for a few days. Because these signals are so behaviorally addictive, it’s often necessary to fully remove the app from your device to prevent absentminded scrolling. I know when I first deleted my social accounts a few years ago, I found myself mindlessly picking up the phone in idle moments, only to remember that I’d removed the app I was reflexively looking for. Eventually, that habit faded and new, better habits took its place. So even if it’s just no-social Saturdays, consider taking a little break now and then to detox from your feeds.
Reclaiming Balance in a Digital World
Social media is deeply embedded in modern life, and its influence is unlikely to fade anytime soon. However, we are not powerless against its effects. By recognizing the forces that decenter us, cultivating mindful engagement, and building reflective practices, we can reclaim our sense of balance and authenticity.
This journey begins with small, deliberate steps: pausing to question what we see, aligning our actions with our values, and resisting the pull of emotional manipulation. Over time, these practices can transform our relationship with social media into one that supports rather than undermines our well-being.
References
Chou, H.-T. G., & Edge, N. (2012). “They are happier and having better lives than I am”: The impact of using Facebook on perceptions of others’ lives. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 15(2), 117–121. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2011.0324
Haidt, J., & Twenge, J. M. (2021). Social media use and mental health: A review. Current Opinion in Psychology, 44, 101286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.08.014
Walsh, J. J., Furlong, B., & Xu, J. (2019). Social media and subjective well-being: Role of culture. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2028. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02028
