I dream of … trending topics? Here's how social media can become the stuff of nightmares

A recent study links social media use with poor sleep quality and a greater prevalence of nightmares. 

It’s the latest in a series of studies that links adolescents’ frequent use of social media with worrisome mental health outcomes—and the first to focus on the negative psychological toll it may be having on dream quality and related sleep disturbances. Other distressing outcomes stemming from the use of networking platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, X, and Facebook include greater incidences of depression, increased loneliness and isolation, and higher risk of cyberbullying and suicide.

"As social media becomes increasingly intertwined with our lives, its impact may even influence our dreams (as) we found that individuals who spend more time on the platforms during their waking life are more prone to experiencing nightmares," says Reza Shabahang, lead author of the study and a research psychologist at Flinders University in Australia. 

This occurs, in part, because the content one sees there “about bullying, political fights, distressing news, and social comparisons adds emotional distress, which can lead to bad dreams," says Shelby Harris, a clinical psychologist and a neuroscientist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, who was not involved in the research. 

The findings are consistent with other research on sleep quality related to social networking platforms and reveal another way their use can negatively impact overall health—even as social media-related nightmares are still thought to be rare and the study has limitations such as being self-reported and cross-sectional, thereby not proving its findings as causal.

How social media impacts dreams

The new research followed what Shabahang's research team defined as a "social media-related nightmare scale," which was constructed based on previous nightmare classifications, related literature, and other studies that have explored outside influences on dream quality. 

Following this scale, 595 study participants noted the frequency of their social media activity and how commonly and intensely they experienced nightmares related to the technology.  

Examples of commonly reported nightmares included conflicts with other social media users, disturbing news stories, doom scrolling, being unable to access one’s social media account, and feelings of victimization, helplessness, and loss of control.  

These social media-related nightmares, "were associated with increased anxiety, lower peace of mind, poor sleep quality, and nightmare distress," says Asad Khan, the lead author of a related study and a biostatistician at The University of Queensland's School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.

And while people may sometimes experience such adverse outcomes due to other external factors, "the novelty of this study is that these themes are in the specific context of social media," says Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center in California, who was not involved in the research. 

She explains that the study is effective, in part, because it's based on the research-supported “continuity hypothesis of dreaming,”—a model of dreaming that posits that what we experience during the day shows up in our dreams. 

Consistent with this model, "people who focus on social media more—especially in an anxious or negative way—would therefore be the people expected to have more nightmares related to social media," says Deirdre Leigh Barrett, a dream and sleep researcher at Harvard Medical School and the former president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. 

This focus is key, because how people use these platforms likely directly affects dream quality. For example, Shabahang notes that people who use social media primarily to connect with family and friends are less likely to experience negative dreams than people who use it compulsively to engage in contentious debates online or to follow accounts that regularly highlight distressing news. 

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Regardless of one’s intentions, upsetting information or negative interactions commonly occur across the social platforms as their algorithms are “specifically designed to physiologically and psychologically arouse emotions and feed into media addiction, making the brain and body want even more social media input," says Maida Lynn Chen, a sleep medicine physician and the director of the Pediatric Sleep Disorders Center at Seattle Children's Hospital in Washington.

How social media affects sleep quality

Beyond unpleasant and distressing dreams, the Flinders study and other related research shows that poorer sleep quality and sleep disruptions are also generally more common among people who overuse social media applications. 

"A large body of research supports the association between screen-based media consumption time as a whole and poorer sleep health in minors and possibly in adults as well," says Anthony Levasseur, a sleep researcher at the Center for Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine in Montreal, Canada. 

Indeed, Khan's 2024 study of more than 200,000 social media users shows that social media habits and behaviors that interfere with work and school responsibilities and negatively impact interpersonal relationships can cause enough stress to boost one’s odds of getting a lousy night’s sleep.

Another study shows that when teens learn of missed opportunities or events on social platforms, they experienced a fear of missing out (FOMO) intense enough they can lose sleep.

"Any socially- or emotionally-triggering experience can lead to rumination, which could affect both your ability to fall asleep or stay asleep,” says Lauren Hale, co-author of a recent related study and the graduate program director of the Population Health and Clinical Outcomes Research program at Stony Brook University in New York. 

She says sleep is affected by social media use in more practical ways as well such as through push notifications, noises and vibrations, or other alerts that interrupt or prevent sleep. 

Even more plain, Chen says “if your eyes are open doing something else, you're not sleeping.” She also says that highly engaging content with fast-paced imagery results in a more alert brain "that is not primed for sleep."

Another related issue is "disrupted circadian rhythm due to the blue light emitted from your electronic device," explains Ben Carter, a professor of medical statistics at King's College London in the United Kingdom. This light stimulates the blue-light-sensitive ganglion cells of the retina, which are photoreceptors in the eye that communicate with the gland responsible for the production of melatonin, explains Levasseur. "This ends up suppressing the production of melatonin, which is the hormone that stimulates drowsiness," he explains. 

While research shows that some people are more sensitive to blue light stimulation than others, affected melatonin levels have nevertheless been shown to increase alertness at bedtime, making it more difficult to fall or stay asleep. 

Why it matters 

All this affects the sleep quality of individuals already likely to be catching too few Z’s.

Recent data shows 20 percent of people getting less than five hours of sleep each night with more than 50 percent getting only six to seven hours nightly. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends getting between seven to eight hours "of good-quality sleep" every night in order to avoid issues related to sleep deprivation. 

Ongoing sleep deprivation has been linked to decreased immune health, increased risk of cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer's disease, impaired cognitive function, decreased metabolic health, and higher rates of obesity and associated health risks such as diabetes. "Chronic poor sleep is also a precursor and mediator of depression and anxiety," adds Carter. 

To prevent sleep deprivation related to social media use, Hale says it's important for parents to check their own social networking habits and screen use before bedtime and to establish technology-related boundaries as they talk with their kids about healthy sleep routines and behaviors.

She emphasizes limiting access to highly engaging or distressing content too close to bedtime and to “charge phones in a central location overnight, so you don’t bring your phone with you to bed."