The rise of midlife social media anxiety – and how to stop scrolling

telegraph.co.uk:

during lockdown 2.0 and Harriet, a mum-of-two, suddenly wakes, wide eyed. The house is quiet but she tosses and turns in the bed she shares with her husband in an attempt to settle back to sleep, but something is on her mind.

She can’t resist grabbing her phone from her bedside. As the screen lights up between her fingers, she is surprised and excited, albeit with a twinge of shame, to see a list of Facebook notifications fill her homescreen. “I’d spend at least an hour quietly replying to messages and searching my feed for news in the middle of the night,” says Harriet, a 48-year-old TV producer from London. “I was addicted day and night and it definitely wasn’t conducive to me feeling happy.”The sleepless nights and the constant phone checking; the need to scroll, like, share and comment, was not only interfering with her mental wellbeing but also her family and work life. “Although I got quite a lot out of the conversations at the beginning, it was a slippery slope.

I couldn’t stop checking Twitter and doom scrolling. It’s a very negative space. The noise wasn’t good,” she says. “I’ve rationed myself to checking my feeds once a week now.

It’s not healthy, actively seeking people out that don’t make you feel good.”It appears that while much has been documented on the link between overuse of social media and depression in young people, there has been little research on the impact it’s having on the lives of us digital late-adopters in midlife, who are now the second most prominent generation on social media.Psychologist Sally Baker, who has spent 20 years transforming the lives of negative thinkers, says: “Although we weren’t born into the world of tech like the millennials, we have quickly picked up on the potential.