After an evening spent scrolling through Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook, many people report feeling as though they have been socially connected. They have seen friends' updates, watched videos, reacted to posts, and kept up with what others are doing. But according to psychologists, this can feel like we're being social, but with none of the rewarding emotional feedback of genuine connection.
Recent Research on Scrolling
Recent research shows that hours of mindless scrolling on social media are not simply an undisciplined habit or something people are doing to pass the time. Instead, researchers suggest that platform design and habitual use patterns can create feedback loops that encourage continued scrolling.
Why Scrolling Can Feel Social
Psychologists have a term for this feeling of being social online without actually being with people: social snacking. Psychology Today describes it as consuming other people's social content without engaging in a conversation or getting a direct reply. It offers a brief sense of belonging, much like a snack provides temporary fullness. However, experts say that despite the lack of direct interaction, the brain still can process images, faces, emotions, and life stories on screens as social cues. It can give us a fleeting connection that can quickly dissipate when we're done.
It's Less About Time Spent and More About How You Use It
A major meta-analysis to date, conducted by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, shows the key distinction is not total time spent on social platforms, but how they are used. Intensive passive use is linked to greater loneliness, while active use is not significantly associated with loneliness. Based on data from over 25,000 Europeans, the report reveals that people who use social media intensively and passively, browsing endless streams of news, videos, and images, reported higher levels of loneliness, whereas people who actively use social media to directly communicate with others found no difference in their loneliness levels. This means that passive browsing might not be providing the same sort of psychological benefits as direct social interaction, even when they're happening on the same platform.
Rise of the One-Sided Relationship Online
There's also the growing phenomenon of parasocial relationships online. A parasocial relationship is a one-sided, perceived relationship with an idol or celebrity, who may be an online influencer or personality. We know what someone we've never met is doing, watching every part of their day in their videos. Parasocial relationships are nothing new and have been studied for decades by psychologists, but social media has given them a much wider reach. While we feel like we know people whose content we consume regularly and feel like there's some sort of bond, the fact is that these are not reciprocal relationships, so they lack many of the rewards of real-life friendships or family connections. This may help explain why some people continue scrolling despite reporting that the experience leaves them feeling unsatisfied or disconnected, only for that emptiness to drive them back into scrolling again.
Platform Design Is Another Contributing Factor
Social media platforms are increasingly designed to maximise user engagement with them so that we continue to use them. Features such as infinite-scrolling feeds, predictive algorithms, autoplay content, and notifications aim to keep users hooked on the platform and to consume as much content as possible. While these are designed to be engaging, they primarily facilitate passive consumption of content, rather than any active interaction. A 2024 meta-analysis of 141 studies involving 145,000 people, published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, found that people using social media actively, engaging in interactions, sending messages, etc., actually benefited from more online social support and reported slightly higher levels of well-being, whereas passive use on generic social media sites reported slightly lower emotional states. Researchers said that while social media platforms were developed with the primary purpose of facilitating social interaction, a significant part of their usage is now dominated by passive consumption of others' content rather than meaningful human interaction.
What This Means
This does not mean social media is inherently bad. It's important to recognise that we have two very different experiences on social media: passive consumption of information about other people, and actual social interaction. Sending messages to people you know and having conversations may actually foster feelings of connectedness, whereas endlessly watching a curated slice of other people's lives online might leave you feeling just as, if not more disconnected. It is not so much that we lack discipline as that our brains are not wired to process faces, conversations, and life events without the expected rewards; as a result, the brain may struggle to distinguish what is social from what is not. While researchers are still studying its impact on mental health, the role of social media in our social lives is becoming clearer: it is not about how long you spend on the platform, but how you use it.
