January 14, 2026
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People who spend a lot of time on news sites report less stress than people who spend a lot of time online shopping or scrolling social media, a new study finds.
Online shopping may not only be damaging to your wallet. It also might be increasing your stress, a new study suggests.
The research, published earlier this month, found that people who spent more time shopping online and scrolling social media are more stressed than people who spent more time reading the news and checking email.
"Previous studies have shown that social media and online shopping are often used to relieve stress," one of the study's authors, Mohammad Belal, a doctoral researcher at Aalto University in Finland, said in a news release. "However, our results show that a rise in social media use or online shopping is linked to an increase in self-reported stress across multiple user groups and across devices."
For the study, the researchers installed a tracking program on the devices of nearly 1,500 adults for seven months, culling data from about 47 million visits to websites and 14 million app uses. The researchers also asked participants to self-report stress levels.
For people who already reported being stressed, using the internet was linked to higher stress levels, but people who spent time on social media were twice as likely to report stress compared to people gaming.
On the other hand, people who spent more time reading the news and emails – and looking at online pornography – were less stressed.
"Somewhat surprisingly, people who spent a lot of time on news sites reported less stress than others," Belal said. "On the other hand, those who already experienced a lot of stress didn't spend much time on news sites – and that's consistent with previous research that shows that stress can reduce news consumption."
Overall, findings showed that women reported more stress than men and that older, wealthier people reported less stress.
But the study did not clarify which came first: the stress or the social media and internet use.
"Are people more stressed because they are spending more time online shopping or on social media, or are such sites offering them an important support in times of duress?" Juhi Kulshrestha, one of the researchers, asked. "It's really crucial that we study these issues further so we can solve that chicken and egg problem."
