By Stephen Neely
Does politics stress you out? Did the last election cause you to lose sleep, lose your temper or lose a friend? If so, you weren’t alone.
For the better part of two decades, the American Psychological Association has documented a steady increase in the phenomenon of “political stress” among American voters. However, research and reporting during that same period have focused primarily on the political consequences of increasing polarization and division rather than the psychological consequences of the modern political climate.
As a political scientist studying how the public engages with politics and media, I wondered: What does it mean to live in a political environment that is highly confrontational, emotionally charged and difficult to escape? And how does that environment affect people over time?
During the 2024 presidential election, I teamed up with three colleagues to answer those questions. Our book, The Anxious State: Stress Polarization, and Elections in America, published in January 2026, summarizes what we learned.
While several features of the modern political landscape contribute to political stress, one culprit in particular is alarmingly efficient at converting politics into chronic stress – social media.
Political stress builds fast
We conducted four large, nationally representative surveys tracking Americans’ political attitudes and well-being, one every three months over the course of 2024. Across our election year surveys, roughly 4 in 10 American adults consistently reported that politics had caused them to experience at least one significant stress reaction in the past month. These included nontrivial conflicts with friends and family, sleep disruptions, lost tempers and being unable to mentally or emotionally disengage from politics.
In a country of roughly 260 million adults, that amounts to well over 100 million people experiencing measurable political stress in any given month.
In just one example, at each point in 2024, around 17% of American adults reported losing sleep over politics. This translates to roughly 44 million people nationwide. Sleep loss is not a trivial inconvenience. Extensive research shows that insufficient sleep is associated with impaired cognitive function, chronic health problems, diminished productivity and an increase in traffic accidents, just to name a few.
Our findings point to similar trends from the effects of lost tempers, fractured social networks and excessive political rumination. And while some degree of political stress might be expected in the lead-up to a highly consequential election, what surprised us most was how little these numbers changed over time. Despite a year filled with dramatic political events, reported levels of political stress rarely budged.
This stability suggests that political stress is no longer driven primarily by isolated moments of breaking news or electoral upheaval. Instead, it appears to be sustained by the environment in which people now encounter politics – and that environment is increasingly shaped by social media.
Why social media is different
Social media differs from earlier forms of political communication in a crucial way: Content is not presented chronologically or editorially; it is presented algorithmically. Platforms such as Facebook, X and TikTok are designed to maximize attention and engagement, which means they privilege content that provokes strong emotional reactions.
In other words, content that causes outrage, fear, moral condemnation and conflict is simply more likely to keep users scrolling, clicking, commenting and sharing.
As a result, political information on social media is more likely to reach people through a sensationalized and emotionally charged lens than information encountered through traditional news sources. And given the architecture of social networks, this content tends to reach users whether they seek it out or not.
Time spent online is stressful, but engagement makes it worse
Our findings show that even passive exposure to political content on social media is linked to elevated political stress. But active engagement – such as likes, reposts and comments – makes the problem substantially worse.
People who reported frequently encountering, commenting on or sharing political content online consistently exhibited the highest overall levels of political stress in our survey. Compared with those who primarily consumed political information passively and without engaging, active participants were far more likely to report losing sleep, losing their temper and feeling unable to disengage from politics.
In other words, the more that social media turns users from observers into participants in political conflict, the greater the psychological toll appears to be.
A generational divide
These effects, while substantial, were not distributed evenly across the population.
Younger Americans, particularly members of Gen Z, reported higher levels of political stress associated with social media use than older cohorts. This is not especially surprising. Younger adults are more likely to rely on social media as a primary source of political information.
For a generation that has never known a political environment without algorithmically curated feeds, the boundary between politics and everyday life is especially thin. Politics does not arrive at scheduled times, through discrete channels. Rather, it is interspersed with expressions of social identity, entertainment and peer interaction. And this constant exposure comes with a psychological cost.
Social media alone certainly isn’t to blame for the anxious and divisive state of America’s political climate. In our research, we identified a number of factors that contribute to Americans’ current levels of exhaustion with politics, including sharp increases in partisan hostility and negative – often uncivil – campaign tactics.
But social media nonetheless stands out for how efficiently it amplifies this stress – and that is unlikely to change unless and until voters become more aware that their emotions and well-being are being negatively influenced by the very platforms they turn to for information and connection.
Stephen Neely is Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the University of South Florida.
Laurel says
Good article.
I do not involve myself in X, facebook or Tic Tok. This site is as close to social media as I come. That, and YouTube, which I try to rid of too much one sided algorithms by clearing the history, and not clicking on what is obviously trying to get my attention.
There is way too much influence out there, and I’m learning to back down from the manipulative influences. My main example is, we, here, should not be calling each other names. We need to drop that, and sometimes it’s hard because accepting ideals that appear so off the track to us, that it’s hard to hold back.
The reality is, there are three (or more) groups who want to change our whole system: Those who want white supremacy, those who want Christian nationalization and those who want to monetarily profit by manipulation. The thing both Democrats and Republicans need to keep in mind (and Independents like me) is, those three, or so, groups grow in strength by our division. Divide and conquer. As long as we stay divided, by name calling and insults, and filling our heads with one sided information, the more those groups succeed. They are a small minority, and we should be able to overcome their influence.
We can debate without name calling and insults, and use actual facts and evidence to back our ideals. Those who refuse to do that should be ignored. Those who are more willing to participate with a cool head, and sincere attempts to educate should be read and listened to.
Get off the social media that is trying to keep you on for financial gain for their nonsense. Limit your news time, and stay away from way too much commentary. Go for a walk or swim instead!
I’m gonna work at it; you can work at it too. It’s for all our benefit. We’re all Americans, not just a small portion of us. Reject those who put any of us down.
Ray W. says
Here’s a little more political stress, Laurel.
According to a Raw Story reporter, a prominent hedge fund investor, John Arnold, a person who describes himself as a “fiscal conservative”, posted to X that long-term government bond yields in the UK, the U.S., France and Japan have been spiking to levels not seen in nearly two decades. In the U.S., yields for 30-year Treasuries are above 5.1%.
According to the reporter, a “fire alarm is blaring” and no one is listening, and the “era of ultra-cheap money is over and the bill for fiscal excess is coming due.”
Arnold himself wrote:
“Fiscal conservatives, including me, have been crying wolf for years. People quit listening. There’s too much political incentive to come up with a new spending program or tax cut. Try to reverse either and you’ll get voted out of office.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I agree with Ed P. on this issue. It’s one thing to have a 2020 federal debt of $28 trillion when Donald Trump left office for the first time, a time when the average yield on long-term Treasuries was at or around 2%. 2% of $28 trillion is $560 billion each year. But replacing maturing 10-year T-Bills purchased at 2% with newly-issued 10-year T-Bills with a yield of more than 4.5% is something else altogether. We are at $39 trillion in federal debt and the average yield on Treasuries is rising. We went from $28 trillion in federal debt to $39 trillion in under six years, and the debt has been accelerating over the last 16 months. 4% of $39 trillion is $1.56 trillion per year. Arnold’s cry of too much debt at too high a rate is becoming a reality. Magical thinking can only mask the coming bill.
Since the years of the two Reagan administrations, when David Stockman helped Reagan persuade Congress to cut taxes, administrations and congresses from both sides of the aisle have been kicking the federal debt can down the road. Arnold is telling us that an irreversible tipping point is here. If it isn’t already here, he is saying it isn’t very far away.
Investors do not purchase T-Bills when they think the bond yield is too low. They wait until the yield is high enough to justify the risk. Multiple developed economies at the same time are seeing long-term bond yields selling at record high levels. People are voting with their feet.
I read a recent story about 30-year U.S. T-Bills yielding 5.19% at auction, a rate higher than at any point since the beginning of the Great Recession.
I do not claim to be an economist. But I can read and I can listen. There is a lot of political lying going on. Magical thinking pervades today’s dialogue. Trump, during his first administration, added some $8 trillion to the federal debt. Biden added another $8 trillion or so during his administration. Trump is closing in on adding another $4 trillion in the first two years of his second administration.
Republican Dave says
Ray W. I read your comment to Laurel. There is no more fiscal conservatives because the Big Beautiful Bill is more government spending for different programs, while cutting others, adding at least $2 trillion more to the deficit.
I watch the what the Treasury bills are doing, and the inverted curves. You may want to look at the 20 year T bill instead of the 30.
R.S. says
I couldn’t agree more, Laurel.
PaulT says
I don’t do social media except an occasional visit to BlueSky.
The news I get via AP, NYT and the BBC is depressing enough without being amped up by opinionated influencers who’s aim is profit as much as/more than truth.
Like Trump’s misnamed ‘Truth Social’ propaganda vent-site (should it be named ‘Anti-social Lies’)? the post-Elon ‘Twitter/’X’ algorithm is so manipulated towards righty/hate sooech that I evacuated for the sake of my mental health.
Are current political events depressing? Of course, the asassination of democracy painful to watch. But there’s no point in losing sleep over it. I’m old enough to realize that all I can do is jab at the current ‘Criminal Administration’ and it’s ignorant cult following of bigots. then vote in the hope that Trump’s rabbit hole will collapse and crush them all. Despitee the Republican dirty tricks a vast uprising of the intelligent and frustrated voters sweeps away the Congressional majority who are protecting the braggard in chief..
BIG Neighbor says
If we are having difficulty with online violence through words with things like bad actor scamming, toxic gaming communities and access to online gambling, wait until Ai gets traction. Technology acts so much faster than what we can regulate to protect the vulnerable, especially when those that represent us also represent corporate interests.
an excerpt from https://sites.google.com/site/macrocausem/360-customer-profile
The ability to use fresh and appropriate data to build models that simulate is nothing new. However, what is relatively new is the (1) intrusive capability of advertisers through web service providers to track and manipulate the user interface and user experience, and (2) scale and frequency the sampling instances. This sets the stage for a booming potential, the likes of which we are seeing in most recent socio-economic terms. That’s a good thing for those on the ground floor investments of Big Analytics. But, what is the opportunity cost in terms of domestic tranquility?
BIG Neighbor says
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2026-05/pope-leo-xiv-encyclical-magnifica-humanitas-ai.html