A guide to attention, labels and the research

Your Brain,
Your Feed

Every fact on this page links to its evidence. Tap a source to see who found it, how many people they studied, where it was published and what it doesn't prove. Then tap to open and read the article yourself.

Try it. This is the biggest study on short videos and attention so far:

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Your journey

Six chapters, in order

Each chapter starts with a short bite to tap through. Everything after that is optional.

    Want it all on one page instead? See everything, with every bite, the full guide and all sources.

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    Optional. The full detail, with every source a tap away.

    Start here

    What you're feeling is normal

    Struggling to focus, feeling restless or anxious, zoning out and overthinking at night are common, especially in the late teens. The US National Institute of Mental Health describes the teenage brain as still maturing, sleep as often short, and stress as hitting harder at this age .

    Researchers have linked heavy short-video use with weaker attention and more stress and anxiety , and long gaming sessions before bed with later, shorter sleep . Psychiatrists who reviewed popular mental health videos found that many present everyday experiences as signs of a disorder . Researchers warn this can turn ordinary behaviour into a diagnosis .

    Scrolling and gaming are enjoyable, and habits that feel good are hard to change. This page doesn't ask you to give anything up. It sets out what researchers have found, with a source for every point, so you can check it and test it on yourself.

    Could it be ADHD or autism? Clinical guidelines say only a full specialist assessment can answer that .

    Why show the evidence? Plenty of videos sound sure of themselves. In one study, about half of the most popular #ADHD creators were selling something or asking for money . A confident voice isn't the same as evidence, so here you can check everything.

    ADHD, autism, dissociation

    Untangle what you're feeling

    Tick everyday things below and watch one you split into labels.

    Try it

    How you end up "having everything"

    Tick anything you've done or felt in the last month. Be honest; nobody else sees this.

    In a University of British Columbia survey of 843 students, those who watched more #ADHD TikToks thought ADHD was more common and trusted the videos more. The self-diagnosed students watched the most . An independent expert pointed out this is a link, not proof that videos cause self-diagnosis, since people with ADHD traits may simply watch more.

    Pick the one that sounds most like you.

    Both can be true. Heavy screen use and ADHD or autism can exist together. US and UK guidance says clinicians have to rule out things like sleep problems and anxiety, and that only a full specialist assessment can tell them apart .

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    Explore the brain

    Four regions, your inputs

    The real anatomy behind bites 2 and 3. Tap a region to see what it does, why it matters at your age, and the research behind it.

    Hormones, body clock, brain

    Being 18 changes things too

    Drag the age slider below and watch the front of the brain switch on.

    Some of what the videos call symptoms, researchers describe as normal development. Move the slider to see what's going on at each age.

    18

    Bars show the ages each finding covers. The line is the age you picked.

    NIMH says most teenagers go on to become healthy adults, and describes the teenage brain as resilient . None of this means something is wrong. But a late body clock, a brain still maturing and a feed full of labels can add up to something that looks a lot like ADHD or anxiety.

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    Optional. The full detail, with every source a tap away.

    TikTok, YouTube, Xbox

    Relaxing isn't the same as resting

    On the left, calm. On the right, what researchers measured.

    Lots of people use TikTok or Xbox to switch off, and it does feel like a break.

    Researchers draw a line between feeling relaxed and the brain actually resting. In a sleep lab, teenage boys were more alert after 50 minutes of gaming than after a nature documentary . A brain-scan study found that videos picked by a person's own algorithm kept reward areas more active than random videos .

    What it feels like

    Calm. Switched off. Not thinking.

    What researchers measured

    Reward areas more active. More alert. Later, shorter sleep after long sessions.

    Tap through it

    The loop you can't feel

    Because these effects show up later, the 7-day reset lets you measure them yourself: nights with screens before bed against how long you take to fall asleep and how you focus the next day.

    What about switching off your thoughts?

    Psychologists at the University of Virginia and Harvard found that most people found just 6 to 15 minutes alone with their thoughts unpleasant. In one experiment, 12 of 18 men gave themselves a mild electric shock rather than sit with nothing to do .

    A review of 26 studies and over 48,000 people found that gaming to escape problems went with more problem gaming, and with more of the loneliness and anxiety people were escaping from . The authors note they can't yet say which comes first.

    Why it's so hard to put down

    A brain-scan study found that videos picked by a person's own algorithm switch on the brain's reward hub and its daydreaming network more than random videos . Neuroscientists who study reward conclude that dopamine, often called the pleasure chemical, drives wanting the next reward far more than enjoying it .

    What studies found about attention

    A 2025 review of 71 studies and nearly 100,000 people found that heavier short-video use went with weaker attention and self-control . A brainwave study of 48 young adults found a similar link with prefrontal control signals .

    What does a "link" actually look like?

    The cloud behind this page reshapes as you switch.

    Researchers report links as a number from 0 (none) to 1 (perfect). Each dot is a made-up person. Switch between strengths to see what 0.38, the attention link from the big review, looks like.

    None of these studies measured permanent damage. In an experiment at the University of Pennsylvania, students who cut back on social media felt less lonely and less depressed within three weeks .

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    The turning point

    What it replaces

    Where researchers keep finding the cost: in the hours a screen takes from something else.

    Weis and Cerankosky, who tested this in a randomised experiment, put it plainly: video games may displace after-school activities that have educational value . The sleep researchers Hale and Guan name the same mechanism first in their list of three, before arousal and light: time displacement .

    In that experiment, 64 boys aged 6 to 9 who did not own a console were randomly split. Half got a PlayStation 2 straight away; half got one four months later. The boys with the console spent about 18 minutes a day on after-school learning against 32 minutes for the others, and their reading and writing scores fell behind. Once the time they had lost was accounted for, the gap disappeared. Maths was unaffected .

    A review of 58 studies covering 480,479 children and teenagers, published in JAMA Pediatrics, found that total screen time was not linked to grades. Television and video games were, and for video games the link appeared only in adolescents .

    Hale and Guan reviewed 67 studies of screens and sleep in school-aged children and teenagers. Ninety percent found screens linked to worse sleep, and for video games it was 18 studies out of 21. They give three reasons: time displacement, arousal, and light .

    Your 24 hours

    Use your own numbers. The ring only does the arithmetic: what is left for sleep, against the CDC floor , and your study minutes beside the experiment's .

    Saved on this device only.

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    Getting a real answer

    Real assessment vs algorithm labels

    A 60-second video sees one moment of a stranger's life. UK guidance says an ADHD diagnosis should only come from a qualified specialist, after a full clinical and psychosocial assessment that includes your developmental history and reports from people who know you .

    The official criteria describe ADHD and autism as developmental: the signs have to be there early in life, even if nobody noticed at the time . So the key evidence is how you were at 5, 8 and 11, not how you feel this month.

    The US CDC says there's no single test for ADHD, and that sleep problems, anxiety, depression and learning difficulties can look similar, so clinicians rule those out .

    What an assessment usually involves

    1. Your developmental history. An interview, often with a parent, about early childhood, school and friendships. Guidelines require this .
    2. Reports from others. From parents, teachers or old school reports, to see whether signs show up in two or more places, as the criteria require .
    3. Rating scales and observation. Standard questionnaires and, for autism, a structured observation.
    4. Ruling out other causes. Sleep, mood, anxiety and physical health .
    5. Feedback and a plan. A written report and a conversation about what it means and what support fits.

    Starting in Ireland

    Practical steps, not research findings.

    Your GP is the usual first step.

    Under 18

    Referral to CAMHS or primary care psychology.

    18 and over

    Referral to the HSE adult ADHD programme or a psychiatrist.

    Private assessments are faster but cost more. Choose registered psychologists or psychiatrists who do the full process above, not a single questionnaire.

    Whatever the answer is, you come out ahead. If it's yes, you get support that fits. If it's no, the struggles still count, and the research on this page points to things you can change: sleep, habits, stress, and how you use your phone and Xbox.

    Test yourself

    Fact or feed?

    Here are claims you'll see online. Decide for each one, then see what the research says and check the evidence.

    Evidence check

    Checking the claims you've been sent

    Some summaries going around cite real-sounding studies. Each source that could be opened was compared with what the summary says. Several real papers turn out to be stretched into claims their authors don't make.

    Three of these links couldn't be opened for checking. They're marked "Can't verify", which means unchecked, not wrong. Read them yourself and ask the five questions in All sources.

    Not all sources are equal

    The evidence ladder

    The higher the step, the more checking behind it.

    The higher up, the more people, checks and studies sit behind a claim. Every source on this page is placed on a rung so you can see how much weight it carries.

    More checking
    Less checking

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    The fair side

    What screens do well

    Start with what the research gives screens credit for.

    Psychologists at the University of Geneva, with colleagues at Columbia, Santa Barbara and Wisconsin, pooled the studies on action video games. Across 8,970 people aged 6 to 40, gamers' cognition was better by half a standard deviation than non-gamers'. When people were trained on action games in experiments, the gains came from play spread over many weeks to months, not from binges .

    Researchers at Karolinska Institutet followed 9,855 children in the United States from age 9 or 10 for two years. Those who played more games than average increased their intelligence more than average. In the paper, the effect of gaming was 0.17 of a standard deviation, which on the IQ scale works out at about 2.5 points. Watching videos and socialising online did no harm to intelligence either. Intelligence was the only outcome measured, so the study says nothing about sleep, grades or mood .

    At the Oxford Internet Institute, researchers linked six weeks of play records from 38,935 players, supplied by seven game publishers, with three rounds of wellbeing surveys. They found little to no evidence that time spent playing changed wellbeing either way. Why people played seemed to matter more than how long .

    In a study of 120,115 teenagers in England, Przybylski and Weinstein found that wellbeing rose with moderate screen use and only fell with heavy use, and that the pattern differed between school days and weekends. Their conclusion was that moderate use is not intrinsically harmful .

    Orben and Przybylski then analysed three datasets covering about 355,000 adolescents in every reasonable way the data could be specified. Digital technology use explained at most 0.4% of the variation in wellbeing: a negative link, but a small one .

    When Pew Research Center surveyed 1,316 US teenagers in 2022, 80% said social media made them feel more connected to their friends, 71% said it gave them a place to show their creative side, 67% felt supported through tough times, and 38% felt overwhelmed by the drama .

    One widely shared study seemed to show children who gamed doing better on attention tests. In 2023 it was retracted and republished with corrected figures: the cognitive differences were very small, and the children who gamed scored higher on attention problems, depression and ADHD measures . The lead author said those differences remained far from clinical significance. Evidence can change, which is why every fact here can be checked.

    An experiment, not a punishment

    The 7-day reset

    Seven nights, measured. The wave is sleep.

    You're not quitting your phone. You're turning it down for a week to see what changes, and collecting evidence you can take to a GP. The 30-minute limit comes from a University of Pennsylvania experiment that reduced loneliness and depression. Its authors found that just tracking use seemed to help too . Each morning, also log whether you had screens in the hour before bed, so you can see the cost you wouldn't otherwise notice.

    Don't want to change anything?

    Fair enough. Habits that feel good are hard to drop. So skip the tasks for now. For a few days, change nothing and just fill in the numbers each morning and evening. If screens aren't affecting you, the numbers will show that, and you've lost nothing. If they are, you'll see it yourself instead of being told.

    If you do try the changes, some people find the first few days harder: restless and bored. If you slip, that's data, not failure. Carry on the next day.

    Saved on this device only. Nobody else can see it.

    A limit to keep in mind: a week can't rule anything in or out. The official criteria look at signs since before age 12, across several settings , so improving this week doesn't prove you don't have ADHD. Treat the week as one clue for you and a clinician, not a verdict.

    A guide to attention, labels and the research

    Your Brain
    in Bites

    Ten short bites, in story order. Tap through at your own pace. Every fact says who found it, with the evidence a tap away. And unlike a feed, every one ends.

    One a day is plenty. Your progress is saved on this device only.