In 2012, Facebook collaborated with university researchers to manipulate the news feeds of almost 700,000 users for a week (Frizell, 2014). Unbeknownst to them, one group of users was shown less positive content from their friends, filling their daily feeds with negativity, while the other group was shown more positive content. The study revealed that when their exposure to positive content was reduced, users wrote fewer positive words in their own comments and status updates (Kramer et al., 2014). In other words, the more we’re exposed to negativity in our online spaces, the more we amplify it to the rest of the world.
The users in the experiment never expressly consented to participate and were not informed that their algorithms were being manipulated. Their consent was implied in the general terms and policies that all users agree to when signing up for the platform. Facebook was clear: we’ll let you play on our platform if you agree to our rules.
While no data was collected on whether this exposure to more negativity impacted the user’s mental health, many who suffered from episodes of depression or anxiety around that time wonder if they were part of the study.
If you’re like me, reading this, you might be thinking the same. Was there a strange week in 2012 when I felt unhappy?
What might have been the effect of so much negativity on my mental health? How might I have affected others by amplifying that negativity?
How else is my social media exposure manipulating my mind, body and emotions?
The impact of social media on our thoughts and emotions has been well-documented, with data showing that social feeds can shift and amplify our political beliefs, and increase polarization, by separating users into information and opinion siloes that grow distrust and hostility (Brady et al., 2021). Likes and “retweets” can escalate moral outrage through reinforcement learning: the more you are rewarded for expressing anger, the angrier you feel.
Our anger then fuels the addictive nature of the algorithms, making us more likely to share and spend time on the apps, further amplifying our negative feelings (Han et al., 2023).
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when many of us retreated to our screens, social media disseminated emotional content related to fear, anxiety, and distrust, while isolating people based on their beliefs and group identities (Lu & Hong, 2022). In a time of significant uncertainty and collective trauma, we lost connection with one another, focusing on our differences rather than our shared humanity. And, the more we engaged, the more this shaped our psychosocial and emotional worlds.
Social media platforms manipulate our thoughts, emotions and behaviours through our brain’s reward system.
Dopamine, the neurotransmitter that drives seeking behaviour, is involved in the experience of positive reward, rather than the pursuit of lasting pleasure. Still, its presence in our brains motivates and energizes us. Dopamine is the molecule of wanting, not having.
Unexpected “variable” rewards, like the random payoffs you get from playing a slot machine, trigger dopamine pathways that encourage repeated behaviour (Lieberman & Long, 2018). Every swipe, like, or notification delivers a burst of novelty and potential reward, triggering the release of dopamine. We feel energized, focused, and alert, and most of all, we crave more. Over time, these micro-hits of anticipation keep us hooked.
As we play (or scroll) on, the repeated stimulation desensitizes our dopamine receptors, which can decrease our overall satsifaction from natural, wholesome rewards and increase our craving for more cheap digital hits.
Emotionally charged content can elicit stronger responses, prompting us to engage by checking, scrolling, posting, commenting, and reacting, which keeps us hooked (Brady et al., 2021; Kramer et al., 2014). The result is a nervous system caught between stimulation and depletion, heightened reactivity, reduced presence, and a lingering sense of restlessness. We feel simultaneously wired and exhausted.
Since starting private practice, I’ve often noticed that particular types of clinical cases tend to come in waves, and, for the last two weeks, the theme among my psychotherapy and naturopathic patients has been burnout.
This week alone, ten clients described feeling trapped on a treadmill of constant doing that feels both meaningless and incredibly demanding. Even vacations and downtime no longer feel restorative. Virtually all of them confessed to fantasizing about escaping it all: moving to a sleepy beach town or buying land to garden and raise chickens on. Does this sound good to you, too?
Then, you’re not alone.
The central question is an existential one: why don’t I feel satisfied with my life?
It may be due to global and economic uncertainty, the side effects of late-stage capitalism, or the psychological and emotional aftermath of the pandemic. But the fact of the matter is, we’re running without an end, with a lost sense of purpose, and we’re exhausted.
This pattern in my practice feels bigger than individual moral exhaustion: it’s a kind of collective depletion of dopamine.
Dopamine is the molecule of more: do more, think more, consume more, produce more (Lieberman & Long, 2018). It is the molecule of desire: future thinking and forward momentum. While on our endless treadmills, dopamine urges us on, with cortisol close behind, nipping at our heels.
Having is a phenomenon regulated by other neurochemicals, such as serotonin, GABA, acetylcholine, or oxytocin. They are here-and-now chemicals present while we’re resting, enjoying, basking in the fruits of our labour.
There’s a curious paradox in this stressed-out state: we struggle to relax fully. We know we should do some yoga, go for a walk, meditate, or even sleep, but instead we scroll on the couch, shovel sugar into our mouths, and overconsume alcohol.
When dopamine and cortisol stimulate our stress and reward systems for too long, rest can feel impossible, leading to overwhelming feelings of guilt and restlessness. There’s still so much to do. Stillness can feel like a threat to stressed systems. And so our minds continue to seek stimulation, even when exhausted.
Why is rest so hard in a dopamine-depleted state? When the brain has been used to constant novelty, the nervous system can interpret stillness as deprivation. In that depleted state, rest can feel uncomfortable. Our minds search for something to do, to replenish our dopamine levels: scrolling, snacking, or even working more. Yet, as you might have guessed, these bursts only perpetuate depletion, which can keep our bodies in a low-grade state of constant stress arousal.
In dopamine-depleted states, the activation and motivation required to shift gears can feel impossible. Instead, we reach for easy hits of pleasure and connection through our phones, substances, or sugar, which fail to provide the deep replenishment or sustained pleasure that our often tired and overstimulated nervous systems need (Lieberman & Long, 2018).
After an initial boost, these activities drop our dopamine levels below baseline, leaving us feeling emptier and more exhausted than we were before—a state of unrestful rest—and a craving for more to right the balance (Lambke, 2022).
This drop in baseline pleasure leaves us feeling even more depleted, depressed, and unmotivated. We can’t seem to will ourselves off the couch—we can’t pull away. And, like any chemical drug, social media can mess with our mental health: increasing emotional volatility, impairing self-regulation, and producing stress, anxiety and attentional deficits (Tereschenko, 2023).
The passing of my dog, Coco, this spring left me emotionally and morally exhausted. After that, the summer tornado swept through, unleashing a surge of dopamine-boosting activities: trips to the East Coast, extended family visits, and concerts. I was social and busy, but overstimulated.
My depletion was apparent in how I spent my downtime. Rather than resting, I found myself scrolling through my phone in the evenings, unable to will myself to get up and do something meaningful, restorative, or productive. I felt ashamed and frustrated with myself, but at the same time, thanks to my training, I recognized that screen fatigue is not a result of weak willpower, moral failure, or misaligned values. It’s a neurochemical imbalance that necessitates mindful restoration.
I didn’t like how I felt while scrolling either. I could feel the images through my screen provoking feelings of comparison and inadequacy, desire, lack, depression, fear, or anger. Sometimes I’d find a cute dog video, connect with a friend, or learn something new, but these benefits didn’t seem to outweigh the downsides of spending time on the apps.
I decided to take action to break the cycle. In mid-August, I committed to a social media “dopamine fast” (Lambke, 2022). A dopamine fast involves abstaining from a high-dopamine-stimulating (and ultimately dopamine-depleting) behaviour for a prolonged period of time: usually a minimum of 30 days.
The fast isn’t about eliminating dopamine stimulation, which is impossible, but reducing overstimulation so that our reward pathways can recover and natural, lower-intensity rewards can start to feel satisfying again. In my case, the more restorative practices I wanted to incorporate were reading, writing, art, nature hikes, and meditation.
The brain strives to maintain a pain-pleasure balance: when we’re flooded with high-dopamine stimuli like the constant novelty of social media, our baseline shifts so that pleasure becomes harder to reach (Lambke, 2022). This can result in feelings of boredom, distraction, and general ennui, as well as a lower overall mood. We’re caught in a cycle of depletion-stimulation-depletion, leaving us feeling emotionally malnourished.
I didn’t want to lose the memories, content, and connections I’d created across various social media platforms, so I didn’t want to delete them completely. Instead, I decided to remove the apps from my phone. This is what Anna Lambke, in her book Dopamine Nation, calls “self-binding,” or placing physical, chronological, or categorical limits around behaviour to slow and interrupt the reward cycle. For me, it was removing the icons; for others, it might be setting tech-free hours or shutting off their phones.
At first, it sucked.
Sometimes I would reflexively check my phone before I remembered. A wave of disappointment would sometimes overcome me. I would open a book and stare at the page.
Lambke, a psychiatrist, notes that during the first two weeks of a dopamine fast, her patients often report feeling worse. Without the constant hits of pleasure, they remain stuck in a state of low motivation, boredom, and craving. Life is just pain. I felt that.
But, if we stay with our feelings of discomfort rather than trying to escape them through numbing or stimulating, we can restore our brain’s emotional reward balance. I tried to lean into the withdrawal symptoms as best I could. I sometimes felt restless, bored, and even irritable. I took these as signs that my brain’s pleasure-pain scales were recalibrating.
In the fashion of mindfulness, I tried to avoid suppressing or turning away from the urges and cravings, but to observe them: noticing them, naming them, and riding the wave with self-compassion until they passed.
To help shift the balance, Lambke also recommends “pressing on the pain side,” or introducing minor stressors, such as cold water therapy, exercise, or quiet solitude. These sometimes unpleasant, yet beneficial practices can help strengthen our brains’ capacities for delayed gratification and patience, thereby retraining our reward sensitivity. When we push through these discomforts, we are often left with a wonderful sense of well-being afterwards.
Over time, I started to notice a shift. I felt a sense of space and patience. As my reward system shifted, I began to enjoy more subtle things: walking without headphones, when I would typically need a podcast or music; and reading for hours, whereas before I would reach for my phone after a few pages.
Most of all, I felt more willing to rest fully.
After a few weeks, I forgot about scrolling. I also forgot about other dopamine-stimulating vices like snacking, sugar, and caffeine.
My appetite shifted. I experienced more explicit cues for food, hunger, and movement. It was as if my body’s subtle signals stopped being drowned out by the din of numbing cravings and distractions. I felt less urgency—it was okay to pause and wait before putting down my book or stepping away from my desk to go to the kitchen.
Dopamine fasting can help heal burnout, as the drop in constant stimulation helps the nervous system shift out of low-grade sympathetic (fight-or-flight) activation. We have permission to power off, which reduces cortisol levels, and this, in turn, can support sleep and blood sugar control.
Once the sympathetic nervous system and adrenals gear down, our parasymphathetic nervous systems can turn on, supporting rest, digestion, and feelings of calm. In this state, we can pay more attention to internal body cues, like signals of hunger, thirst, and fatigue.
One of the most potent effects of a dopamine fast is its impact on delayed gratification: the ability to wait for a more meaningful reward rather than reach for immediate pleasure. The prefrontal cortex, which governs impulse control and long-term planning, begins to reassert itself over the faster, dopamine-driven limbic system that tells us to grab that second donut despite the adult brain pleading that we’re trying to reduce sugar.
More prefrontal cortex activity is the neurobiological foundation of discipline and patience: the longer we can pause before acting on an urge, the more time the brain has to engage higher-order reasoning. Over time, this recalibration enables us to find genuine pleasure in slower, more intentional choices, rather than being pulled along by the next quick hit of stimulation that may be at odds with our longer-term goals and values.
We experience better executive functioning, including planning, decision-making, and sustained focus. Bandwidth increases.
At the end of September, I went on a family trip to Italy. It was my first time there in 23 years. I explored the towns of Pietralunga and Gubbio in the province of Umbria, where my late grandparents, Nonno and Nonna, grew up. We connected with my large extended family, and dove into our shared history. For days on end, I had no internet access.
When I got back, I paused before redownloading the apps. But I knew I needed to connect again and use them as the tools they were designed to be: to help me, not hijack me.
At first, I admittedly checked my phone instead of writing this. Eventually, I shifted back to my old, practical tools: Pomodoro timers, Google Calendar, waking early, and scheduling exercise—I “pressed on the pain.”
And it worked, because… well, here we are.
I’m not sure what my relationship with social media will look like moving forward.
For now, I’m pausing before posting, stopping my scroll, and being intentional about which accounts, messages, and conversations I amplify. I want to preserve the connection, sharing, sense of community, and learning I get from the technologies without getting pulled into the cycle of anger, comparison, craving, and anxiety that underlie their darker sides.
I want to utilize social media as an extension of my values, supporting what I care about: my practice, my patients, my passion for mental health and teaching, and my creativity.
I know I’ll always need to set and maintain boundaries with these apps. I’ll need to practice stepping away. But, thankfully, presence is a muscle—it gets stronger with use.
And for those of you reading who are feeling burnt out, apathetic, or unmotivated, you might also be in a state of dopamine depletion that keeps true joy, meaning, and focus just out of reach. It’s just not you: it’s the state so many of us are in.
You might engage with this state by reducing sources of excess stimulation for a few weeks: stepping away from your devices, simplifying your schedule, considering what loads you might put down, and leaning into stillness, even when it feels uncomfortable or impossible.
You might begin by reclaiming agency in small ways: one task, one boundary, or one decision at a time. Even seemingly insignificant choices can signal safety to the nervous system and restore a sense of self-efficacy.
Finally, remember that rest is an act of repair that allows creativity, compassion, appreciation, and peace to return. Grounding practices can help foster connection and presence, allowing the nervous system to calm down through activities such as breathwork, sunlight, unhurried movement, and sensory awareness. Stillness doesn’t have to be a threat. It’ll all get done.
When struggling with meaning and satisfaction, I often have clients re-anchor to their values: what truly matters, and what would remain if all the noise and obligation fell away? I provide them with a master list of common human values (they are easily searchable on the internet), and I encourage them to select their top five. You might try this exercise yourself and be surprised and validated by what you find.
In what ways does your daily life reflect and serve those values? In what ways does it not?
Nature and creativity can reconnect us to a world of meaning and slow the release of dopamine, whether it’s through journaling, cooking, or making art. Creativity reactivates intrinsic motivation, helping us feel alive again.
These are not quick fixes but pathways back to meaning, patience, and vitality.
Ultimately, a dopamine fast is about reclaiming agency over our stimulation: to choose it consciously.
I want to be the one deciding when to log on, to scroll, and most importantly, to stop. I want to use these tools, not fear them, escape them, or be ruled by them. Freedom is the power to choose: connection and presence over compulsion and impulse. It’s learning to participate while protecting our productivity and peace.
To wrap up, I’ll leave you with some lines from this amazing poem by Quirine Brouwer called “All My Friends and I Talk About Is Getting Rid of Our Phones.”
somewhere, there is a version of me who dared to take the leap she knows the constellations by name her eyes are soft from looking outwards i wonder what she wears i wonder what her hobbies are, and how she finds her way i wonder if she’s ever bored or late or lonely without the glow to hold her
References:
Brady, W. J., McLoughlin, K., Doan, T. N., & Crockett, M. J. (2021). How social learning amplifies moral outrage expression in online social networks. Science Advances, 7(33). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abe5641
Dr. Talia Marcheggiani, ND. (2022, May 7). Dancing with Dopamine: Mood, Motivation & Movement on the Good Mood Podcast [Video]. YouTube.
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/VPXy607ZxP0?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
Frizell, S. (2014, June 28). Facebook totally screwed with a bunch of people in the name of science. Time. https://time.com/2936729/facebook-emotions-study/
Han, J., Lee, S., & Cha, M. (2023). The secret to successful evocative messages: Anger takes the lead in information sharing over anxiety. Communication Monographs, 90(4), 545–565. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2023.2236183
Kramer, A. I., Guillory, J. E., & Hancock, J. T. (2014). Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(24), 8788–8790. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1320040111
Lambke, A. (2022). Dopamine nation finding balance in the age of indulgence. Penguin LLC US.
Lieberman, D. Z., & Long, M. E. (2018). Molecule of more, the. BenBella Books.
Lu, D., & Hong, D. (2022). Emotional contagion: Research on the influencing factors of social media users’ negative emotional communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.931835
Tereshchenko, S. (2023). Neurobiological risk factors for problematic social media use as a specific form of internet addiction: A narrative review. World Journal of Psychiatry, 13(5), 160–173. https://doi.org/10.5498/wjp.v13.i5.160
