Free tool · Wellbeing
Scroll & Your Mood
Move the slider. Watch how the hours you give to feeds track, on average, with how you feel.
Calm · ContentDrained · Low
Steady
Around the daily average. Mood mostly holds, with the occasional dip after a long session.
At 2.5 hrs/day you're near the point where studies start to notice a difference. Most people feel fine here, but the trend line is already tilting.
Illustrative only. This maps population-level associations onto a slider; it is not a diagnosis and not medical advice. Mood is shaped by far more than screen time.
What the research actually finds
Associations, not destiny. Heavier social use tends to track with lower wellbeing, especially past a few hours a day.
Evidence
Adolescents using social media more than 3 hours a day faced roughly double the risk of poor mental health outcomes, including depression and anxiety symptoms.
Riehm et al., JAMA Psychiatry, 2019
In a randomized experiment, limiting social media to 30 minutes a day for three weeks led to significant reductions in loneliness and depression versus a control group.
Hunt et al., Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, 2018
Across large samples, the link between digital screen use and lower wellbeing is real but modest, and grows with the heaviest users rather than light ones.
Orben & Przybylski, Nature Human Behaviour, 2019
Passive scrolling (consuming others' posts) is more strongly tied to dips in mood than active, connection-focused use.
Verduyn et al., Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2015
The honest read: a feed isn't a poison, and an hour won't sink you. But attention is finite, and the hours you pour into strangers' posts are hours not spent on the things that reliably lift mood — sleep, movement, sunlight, and the people in the room with you.
Spend fewer hours scrolling. Spend more of them living.
