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Yes—some screen-based activities may ease stress or anxiety, but the evidence is about specific, structured interventions, not screen time in general. Guided programs for exercise, sleep, diet, mindfulness, or mental-health skills have more support than casual gaming, whose evidence remains early. Ordinary browsing and commercial apps cannot be assumed to deliver the same results.
Why the type of screen activity matters
“Screen time” can mean a guided wellness program, a casual game, social media, or hours of habitual browsing. Those activities have different purposes and effects. A screen may deliver a structured intervention, but that does not mean screen exposure itself is what helps.
For example, digital lifestyle programs can support physical activity, sleep, or diet. If mood improves, the intervention’s content and the changes it supports may matter more than the device used to access it.
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Which digital activities have evidence of potential benefits?
Structured lifestyle programs for adults
A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis of 61 randomized trials in adults examined digitally delivered physical activity, sleep, and diet interventions. It found small pooled effects on anxiety (SMD −0.29) and stress (SMD −0.17), and a small-to-medium effect on depression (SMD −0.37). The pooled effect on well-being was not statistically significant (SMD 0.14, P=.15). The trials included interventions published from January 2013 through January 2023; their results do not estimate the effect of ordinary screen use or every wellness app. Read the review.
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Mobile wellness interventions for young people
A systematic review and three-level meta-analysis of mobile interventions for youth reported benefits across psychosocial outcomes. Commonly examined approaches included cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), mindfulness, and acceptance-based methods. These were interventions designed for wellness or mental health—not evidence that using a phone more generally improves young people’s mental health. Read the review.
Casual videogames
A 2020 systematic review assessed 13 studies covering nine casual videogames. Its authors, Russell Pine, Theresa Fleming, Simon McCallum, and Kylie Sutcliffe, concluded that “CVGs may have promise for treating anxiety, depression, stress, and low mood.” That is a cautious statement about a small evidence base, not proof that a particular game is an established treatment. Read the review.
Why reducing recreational screen use can also help
Benefits from structured digital interventions do not conflict with findings that reducing recreational screen use may help. The activities, people, and outcomes differ.
In a cluster randomized trial in Denmark, 89 families (164 adults) took part in a two-week intervention that asked participants to reduce recreational screen use to less than three hours per week per person. Adults assigned to the intervention reported greater improvement in well-being and mood than controls. Salivary cortisol and cortisone measurements did not show intervention effects. The study involved healthy young and middle-aged adults, used an intensive short-term restriction, and does not show that every screen activity raises stress. Read the trial.
An eight-day preregistered experiment with 338 Gen Z participants also found that the group restricting smartphone and digital-media use reported multiple benefits, while the group restricting social media showed fewer benefits and some potential costs. This is evidence from one short experiment, not a universal rule about what everyone should restrict. Read the experiment.
Social media use is not simply active-good, passive-bad
A 2024 meta-analysis covered 141 studies, about 145,000 people, and 897 effect sizes. Most associations between social media use and well-being were negligible. In the pooled findings, active use was associated with both greater well-being and greater anxiety symptoms. These small associations do not establish cause and effect: they cannot show that posting caused either outcome, or that passive browsing invariably harms well-being. Read the meta-analysis.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to judge whether an activity may help you
When deciding whether screen use is serving your well-being, consider the activity and its purpose rather than counting all screen time as one thing.
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- Look at what you are doing. A structured program supporting movement, sleep, or diet is different from unstructured browsing.
- Check whether you are participating intentionally. Guided mindfulness or CBT-style exercises have a different aim from habitual recreational use.
- Notice the outcome. Anxiety, stress, mood, and general well-being are distinct measures; a change in one does not prove a change in all of them.
- Pay attention to your own response. If a particular activity feels distressing or crowds out sleep, movement, or offline responsibilities, changing that pattern may be more useful than applying a blanket screen-time rule.
What the evidence does not establish
- It does not show that screen time as a whole is beneficial or harmful.
- It does not establish that any specific commercial app or game is an effective treatment.
- It does not show that active social-media use reliably improves well-being, or that passive use invariably worsens it.
- Short studies do not establish whether benefits or costs persist over the long term.
- Digital wellness findings do not make an app a substitute for qualified mental-health care.
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