Anxiety among young adults almost tripled between 2019 and 2023 in the U.S., with one report pointing to the rise in social media use and doomscrolling as potential reasons that anxiety has become more common across the country.
Other factors at play include the COVID-19 pandemic. In an independent report titled “Breaking the Doomscrolling Cycle: Meditation as a Remedy for Anxiety in the Digital Age,” Mahathi Aguvaveedi, a Columbia University alum, said the pandemic increased the amount of time young people in particular spent on their phones.
In 2019, 8 percent of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 had anxiety, but by 2023, that number soared to 22 percent, according to Department of Health and Human Services data cited by the report.
Dr. Balachundhar Subramaniam, a professor at Harvard Medical School, told Newsweek that Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, was “tied to the hip with social media” as many young people spend up to seven hours a day on their phones.
Social media acts as a “digital pacifier” for young people, he added, and a “temporary distraction from boredom, stress, loneliness and difficult emotions.”
There are also many other factors raising anxiety levels across the country. “Pandemic-driven uncertainty, economic precarity, and nonstop social-media exposure created the perfect ‘trigger,’” Dr. Judson Brewer, the director of research and innovation at the Mindfulness Center at Brown University School of Public Health, told Newsweek.
What Is Anxiety?
Anxiety is typically identified as feelings of worry or concern that persist for six months or longer to the point where they interfere with daily activities.
Symptoms of anxiety include feeling restless, irritable, agitated or on edge; getting tired easily; and having muscle tension or trouble concentrating or sleeping.
Brewer said it was common for those with anxiety to frequently consider “what-ifs” about grades, jobs, the climate and the future to the point where “it hijacks attention so studying or working feels impossible.”
Subramaniam said this could be because Gen Z is an “anxious population” and because more people are getting diagnosed with anxiety as recognition of the condition is growing.
What Is Doomscrolling?
Doomscrolling is the term given to the compulsive consumption of negative news and content online.
About 31 percent of American adults engage in doomscrolling regularly, according to a 2024 Morning Consult survey, with rates significantly higher among younger generations: at 46 percent of millennials, those born between 1981 and 1996, and 53 percent of Gen Z.
A 2024 World Health Organization report also found that more than one in 10 adolescents “showed signs of problematic social media behavior, struggling to control their use and experiencing negative consequences.”
The report defined problematic social media use as a “pattern of behavior characterized by addiction-like symptoms.”
Why Is Doomscrolling Linked to Anxiety?
The constant consumption of negative news and content can activate the body’s stress response, Aguvaveedi reported. This results in elevated stress, increased anxiety and other mental health conditions.
Doomscrolling is a behavior that follows a trigger that caused a person to feel uncertain, Brewer said. That behavior offers “fleeting relief that actually feeds more anxiety,” he added.
“Each swipe unpredictably ‘rewards’ the brain with information it thinks is vital,” Brewer continued. Our brain is led to think that scrolling provides more information, and more information “generally leads to reduced uncertainty,” even if the information is not always accurate.
Brewer said that as a result, scrolling can activate dopamine—a hormone that plays a role in functions such as reward and motivation—which makes “scrolling feel instantly rewarding even when it ultimately feels bad, so the brain keeps seeking that next micro-hit of dopamine.”
Subramaniam also said the “dopamine effect” applied not only to scrolling but also to receiving notifications or messages and anytime one shares a post on social media.
As a result, people may become addicted to their phones. “It’s almost like they need help, they can’t help themselves from just doing the same thing over and over,” Subramaniam said.
Doomscrolling can also reinforce worries while simultaneously “preventing active coping,” Andrea Guastello, a professor at the University of Florida, told Newsweek.
“We see more and more things to worry about but don’t do anything to actually improve the situation,” she added.
Guastello also said, “Social media companies are finically motivated to develop algorithms that keep us scrolling. They literally study our behavior to keep us hooked, the same way junk food manufacturers study us to create foods we will keep eating even when we are not hungry.”
Screens also emit blue light. Subramaniam said blue light exposure can “delay the secretion of melatonin,” which is important for sleep.
Increased phone use can therefore affect a person’s sleep, which can aggravate symptoms and feelings linked with anxiety.
What the Experts Recommend
Brewer said it was important to follow three steps when trying to tackle anxiety. First, “notice the urge to scroll when anxious.” Then “mindfully feel how scrolling actually increases tension.” Finally, choose a better alternative, such as a “10-minute mindful walk.”
He added that reducing daily social and news check-ins to two sessions of 15 minutes or less could help, as could putting your phone in grayscale and muting notifications.
Subramaniam, who spoke with Newsweek as part of a promotion for the Miracle of Mind app, said phone use should be no higher than two hours a day and that using a phone’s built-in features to place time restrictions on social media apps could help with that.
Thinking about how you use social media, not only for how long, is also important, Guastello added. “Try and dose things like daily news to only a few interactions with reputable sources,” she said.
“Exercise, playing games and sports, engaging in hobbies, spending time with the family and other people, being in nature, establishing sleep hygiene, and meditation using free, gamified, reliable, and AI-powered apps such as the Miracle of Mind should all be prioritized in place of social media use,” Subramaniam said.
It’s important that people understand why these things are helpful, rather than seeing them as a tick-box exercise for better mental well-being, because at the bottom of many anxious feelings are questions such as “What is the meaning and purpose of life,” he continued.
Understanding and appreciating the “profound experience of life” and “the impact you create for yourself and for others” is important, Subramaniam added.
“I think young adults are anxious for many reasons—the world is shifting and changing so fast. The things that have been sort of taken for granted can’t be anymore, and the future is really uncertain,” Crystal Park, a professor at the University of Connecticut, told Newsweek.
“More generally, the younger generation seems to be less grounded,” she continued, adding that young people “seem to be searching for sources of connection and meaning, but ill-equipped to find them.”
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