Social Comparison Teen Anxiety Hits Harder Than Scrolling

Social Comparison Teen Anxiety is the pattern that stood out in a new study of adolescents, and it mattered more than simply spending a long time online. Comparing yourself with other people on feeds was linked more strongly to worry and low mood than using apps just to pass the time, according to coverage of the research published in a child and adolescent psychiatry journal. The finding does not blame every scroll, and it does not suggest that all online life is harmful. It points instead to one specific experience, the quiet measuring of your own life against polished versions of other lives, as the part worth watching most closely.

Researchers surveyed 4,011 adolescents at 21 schools in southeastern Norway during autumn 2025, gathering questionnaire answers from a group whose average age was fourteen. The team looked at five different sides of online life: measuring yourself against others, passing time, seeking support, facing hostility from others, and directing hostility toward others. Alongside those questions, the young people answered questions about symptoms linked to depression, general worry, social worry, attention difficulties, and oppositional behaviour. Those answers measured symptoms, the researchers stressed, and they were not used to hand out diagnoses.

The comparison between the five sides is what gives the study its bite. Passing time when bored turned out to be the most common reason for being online, yet it showed only weak links to the symptoms examined. Social Comparison Teen Anxiety, by contrast, showed considerably stronger links, especially with symptoms of worry, social worry, and low mood. Experiencing hostility from others, such as being ridiculed, was also linked to symptoms, but those links were weaker than the ones for comparison. The overall pattern looked similar for girls and boys, which suggests the issue is not confined to one group.

Why measuring yourself against feeds can weigh heavier

One plausible explanation is that comparison feeds a loop of recurring negative thoughts about yourself and a growing sense that you lack what others seem to have. A feed rarely shows the ordinary, boring, or difficult parts of a life. It shows highlights, edited images, and moments chosen for applause, so the comparison is rarely fair in the first place. When that loop repeats daily, it can shape how a young person expects social situations to go, making ordinary interactions feel riskier and more exposing than they really are. That mechanism still needs testing over time, the researchers noted, and it should not be treated as settled proof.

Jonas Raninen, an associate professor in clinical neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet, said the distinction between different kinds of use is central to the work. “Our findings show that we need to distinguish between different ways of using social media,” he said, adding that earlier work measuring only total use had not found strong evidence of a link. Geir Scott Brunborg, the study’s first author and a research specialist at the same institute’s centre for psychiatry research, said the team compared the five sides while accounting for age and total time online. That approach, he explained, gave a more detailed picture than looking at minutes alone.

For parents, teachers, and health workers, the practical message is to ask what a teenager actually experiences online, not only how long they were on a phone. A conversation that starts with curiosity rather than a lecture may reveal more: which accounts leave them feeling small, which chats feel hostile, and which corners of the internet feel supportive. Small changes can follow from those answers, such as unfollowing accounts that consistently trigger comparison, keeping supportive group chats, and building offline routines that are not measured in likes. A recent trial in Bradford, England, is testing a different lever, capping combined use at a modest daily limit for some school year groups while others continue as usual, and researchers there are tracking worry, sleep, and time with friends and family. You can read about that trial in our coverage of the Bradford school trial.

What the study cannot prove yet

The strongest caution in the work is its timing. Because online experiences and symptoms were measured at the same moment, the study cannot show which came first. It is possible that comparison contributes to worry and low mood, and it is also possible that young people who already feel worried or low are more likely to compare themselves with others. The relationship may even run in both directions, feeding on itself over time. The team also relied on self-reported answers from one part of one country, which limits how far the results can be stretched to teenagers everywhere. Those limits do not erase the finding, but they do mean it should be read as a strong signal, not a verdict.

The next step is already in motion, with a follow-up round of data collection from the same adolescents underway, according to the researchers. That longer view should help untangle whether comparison comes first, whether symptoms come first, or whether the two rise together. In the meantime, other work is pointing in a complementary direction: a new research centre in New Jersey, backed by state funding, will study which platform features, such as algorithmic feeds and autoplay, carry the greatest risk for young people, and what schools and families can do about them. The centre’s focus on design, not just minutes, echoes the Norwegian finding that the kind of use matters. For readers thinking about their own routines, a related look at how everyday habits shape resilience is in our piece on breakfast, sleep, and campus resilience, and a study on sleep quality and memory is covered in our report on sleep quality and working memory.

Social Comparison Teen Anxiety deserves attention precisely because it is so ordinary. It does not require bullying, a viral post, or an extreme habit to take hold. It can grow out of everyday scrolling, repeated quietly, day after day, until a teenager starts to believe that everyone else is coping better, looking better, and living better. Naming that pattern gives adults a better question to ask than simply how long a phone was on. It also gives teenagers a language for what they are feeling, which is often the first step toward changing it. The full research summary is available from MedicalXpress, and the state research centre is described by Chalkbeat.