Is Social Media Sabotaging Your Performance?
- petergbarry
- 6 days ago
- 11 min read
Fortis Applied Series - E1S1
Pete Barry SEPiT, MSc, BSc | Psychological Performance Coach - Sport Psychologist (in Training)
Introduction to Social Media & Sport Performance.
Do me a favour. Pull out your phone (or briefly click off this page and complete the following
if you’re already on your phone): Go to settings, find ‘Screen Time’ or equivalent, take note of your average daily screen time. What is it? Times it by 7 to get your weekly average if it doesn’t give you that automatically. Keep that in the back of your mind and read on.
Likelihood is, it was around 3-5 hours, possibly more (although if less, brilliant!). That is suggested to be the average time spent on personal devices like mobile phones. More than you thought? If you are a young adult between 15-24 years old, it will likely be closer to 5 hours (especially if this is not something you have given much thought to yet). Gen Z? Around 7 hours. Now, I will admit, statistics like these are not my area of expertise, and I can’t testify for the reliability of the reported stats from which these numbers were sourced [1, 2, 3, 4]. But I can tell you that from my anecdotal experience in my work, my personal experiences, as well as from asking athletes, colleagues, and peers for their stats, this seems to run true. How is that time used? Well it varys, obviously… but some sources show nearly 69% of it is spent on social media.
Athletes are a unique demographic of individuals. Often, they are highly motivated, have high capacity for physical and cognitive load, high levels of direction, and in many (but not necessarily all) areas they are very disciplined. The lifestyle often facilitates feeling drained, or even burnt out, and when free time is available it is often jumped at! This is not unique to only athletes, but high performers in general. This likely feels familiar for you reading this. But how do you actually spend that free time? The answer I am gesturing towards will come as no surprise (given the obvious hints from the title and introduction paragraphs). It is quite often social media, right?
You have five minutes before you need to leave? Scroll.
You are stopping to eat? Watch a video.
You have just woken up? Check and/or scroll.
You get into bed? Check and/or scroll.
You have a break in-between sessions? Check/scroll.
The list goes on.
Athletes have been shown in some sources to hold a screen time of between 3-5 hours per day. UP TO OVER 30 HOURS PER WEEK! That is a full time job in some industries. Those athletes are engaging in that on top of their already extremely high physical and cognitive high workload. So it becomes totally understandable why athletes who spend from as little as 2 hours to 5+ hours of recreational screen time have been shown to have significantly higher levels of dispositional anxiety, as well as higher pre and during-competition anxiety (Gao, Fu, Mao, and She, 2021). Furthermore, smartphone usage has resulted in themes of concurrent negative implications for athletes like stress, distraction, and disengagement. But this is muddied by some perceived positive implications as well, which were identified through qualitative and subjective methods, to include such aspects as self-regulation and social connections. So, the decision of “good” or “bad” categorisation of social media usage in athletes is… complicated (DesClouds and Durand-Bush, 2021).
What is your average daily screen-time?
<2 hours
2-3 hours
3-4 hours
4-5 hours
Why am I Doing This?
This blog article marks the first piece of content in a project I am calling: The Fortis Applied Series. This is a project where I intend to take you, the reader, with me as I work through various topics within the realm of sport and performance. Specifically, the psychology of sport and performance. The mental side of it all. The concept is not new, and many others are doing the same. What I am aiming to do with Fortis Applied, is bridge the gap between research and theory, and stuff which you (athletes, coaches, managers, performers, employees) can actually use and understand.
I want this to help people find out not only what the science suggests (which is only half the story), but also how it applies to the real world, and what might be done about it. So often, too often in fact, I see sport psychology content published and even I think to myself “well aren’t you Mr/Ms clever clogs with all those citations and big fancy words, but what is it you would like me (or the athletes/coaches you are targeting) to do about all that”. To be clear, that is not a dig to anyone in particular at all, more of just a trend I have noticed… I will however say LinkedIn is a large culprit for these types of posts!
So my aim here is not to give you the polished findings and interpretations of research and science off the bat, but to take you with me as I go through it and actually consider findings in an applied context, and put my thoughts and interpretations against the test of reality. Which is where it actually matters most in many contexts, right!
My Position and Thoughts.
I am a psychological performance coach, and a sport psychologist in training (SEPiT). I work in sporting environments, and with athletes, through the lens of psychology and behaviour. I make informed judgments and work off of professional opinion as well as evidence and research informed practice. I conduct my work through a pragmatic lens, which helps me to be adaptive and open to change with the emergence of new information. I tell you this because it is important for understanding what it is I am trying to do with content I write, like this. This will become apparent shortly, but I want to start off this section based on my opinion by naming this.
My current opinion and perspective on social media is that it can be extremely damaging for high performers (and the general public) in terms of both performance and wellbeing. I do not believe it should be promoted to athletes as a means of rest and recovery, or as it being necessary for self promotion (this goes double when it comes to athletes under the age of 18 years old). My experience, understanding, and interpretations of research so far informs this perspective.
As a quick and rough rationale, I want to invite you to revisit the weekly screen time hours I had you identify, or at least see the average data I shared (over 30 hours per week). I want you to compare that number, with the amount of hours you spent training last week. Now I want to ask you to revisit your goals and aims pertaining to your sport. Would you consider that comparison concerning if it was another hobby - lets say, video games? A full time job worth of hours alongside your training schedule. Does this align with what you actually want? As we will get into going forward, in the case of social media, this is often time spent on something which may cost you more than what you think. This is to say, the cost of passive social media usage certainly is not just time.
To be clear, I am not saying you should be training more, or you may not be training enough. I want to be crystal clear that your training load is likely managed by people who know what they are doing, or if it is more self guided, you should ask coaches, S&Cs, Physios, etc about training load. Don’t make drastic changes based off of a blog by some bloke you found on google, and have had no 1:1 contact with. The issue I am raising is HOW people are often using their ‘down time’, not the frequency or duration of it.
I told you of my positioning, and philosophy at the start of this section, because I want you to know that I will be remaining open to a change in interpretation should the emergence of new information or application warrant it. I will attempt to remain as unbiased as possible. It is important you know my current positioning so you know where any feelings of bias may come from as you engage in my content. It is also important to me that you know my philosophical standing so you know that I work in a way which generally remains open to perspectives and information which are useful for the context, not my fixed view of the situation. Generally speaking, my philosophical and practical approach to my work does not align with rigid thinking or perspectives.
Getting to the Point.
It would be foolish to just wish social media away and dream for a world where it was not as popular as it is. It would also be hypocritical of me to suggest people do not use it at all, and naive to suggest that there were absolutely no benefits to social media. After all, my current intention is to use this article as the foundation of a YouTube video, and then potentially post clips across other platforms!
This is a juxtaposition I wrestled with for a while when writing this. ‘How can I hold these opinions, while actively planning to post on social media to spread my message?’. Well, luckily, I am a SEPiT, and reflective practice is one hell of a thing. As such, I developed what is currently my position on social media. It comes down to something pretty simple actually, but not always easy to recognise.
Using social media is not inherently problematic. You can connect, share, promote, earn, network, and more. Yes, indeed there are many benefits to social media. But it costs something… I would argue, the issue lies in the passivity in which it is used, and the mechanisms which facilitate such passivity. Using social media passively, mindlessly, and/or without purpose. This is where I have found social media can certainly be and often is problematic. Not only that, but it is my interpretation of the mechanisms of social media - often recreational digital usage more broadly - that this is the exact capacity in which it is intended to be used. Subtle spikes in stimulating content, just barely grazing stress and arousal responses in our brains, a neurochemical tight-rope act. All of it, just enough to keep us interested, or at least habitually check in.
Another quick experiment. On the screen time section of your phone settings, there should be somewhere to see your ‘Pick-Ups’. How many are you on today so far? Can you find your average? As of writing, it is currently 11:00 for me, and I am on 50. Keep in mind I woke up at 08:00, and I currently have no social media apps other than LinkedIn and Facebook Messenger on my phone. That is roughly the equivalent of me picking up my phone 4 times every 15 minutes this morning. I honestly could not tell you what I did in any of those moments where I ‘picked up’ my phone. How many ‘Pick-Ups’ are you on, and can you tell me what you got out of them?
The methods which are utilised by these platforms are designed, very deliberately, for non deliberate usage. They are designed to lure us into passive usage, because we spend more time on things which are habitual and where we can easily lose track of time.
My position is that social media becomes less harmful if you are using it for a purpose. If you want to check in on friends, then check their pages/accounts and unfollow anyone who you have little or no interest in. If you want to check on celebrities or pop culture news, then do the same, but perhaps only for a set amount of time. If you want to switch off for a bit and are not going to be convinced to do anything else, then could you consider some kind of long form content, or sticking to one creator, perhaps again with a time limit? If you want to grow a personal brand and need to know what is trending, then do market research in your niches content rather than blind consumption. Etc, etc, etc.
I’m not trying to be the fun police, I’m trying to protect your efforts, your interests, and your ultimate goals.
Don’t worry, I'm not transitioning into conspiracy theories here. This is just a reality. These platforms are businesses, and our attention is the product. This is not a secret. But that does not mean it is not a problem, especially for people who have aims which require a lot from them. In fact, the list of negative implications would appear to be far longer than the list of positives…
In DesClouds and Durand-Bush’s, (2021) paper they identified:
Decreases in:
Cognitive capacity
Attention
Analytical thinking
Working memory
Sleep
Task performance
Information processing
Productivity
Efficiency
Social presence
Self control
Wellbeing
And increases in:
Stress/anxiety
Mental health concerns
Mental fatigue
Cognitive load
Isolation
Loneliness
Now if I told you I had a pill which helped you know everything everyone who has had the slightest contact with you has going on in their lives (only the best parts though), presents your thoughts and actions for other people to see and revisit whenever they want, occasionally learn a few things, and give you constant stimulation, but the side effects list was the above… I would be surprised (and concerned) if you took that pill… I also doubt that the pill would be UKAD approved, Informed Sport checked, or legal, but that’s getting us away from the point for now.
“But Pete, part of being an athlete is sponsorship deals and growing a personal brand. It is a good way to just switch off, and stay connected with friends. This is just how things are now.”
Yeah… No. I’ve got to say, I reject this. On multiple levels, I just DO - NOT - BUY IT.
A good way to switch off? Nope. Quitting social media has been shown to decrease stress, and as listed above, using it can contribute to plenty of sources of stress. It is not too much of a stretch to say that it appears to be designed in a manner adjacent to being addictive through variable rewards, reinforcing cues and signals, adaptive phone checking cues and behaviours (Psychology Today). It feels like your brain switches off sure, because it is low effort, repetitive, and slightly stimulating. But you are not ‘switched off’. Likely, you are the opposite. Prolonged levels of acute stress and stimulation does not recharge your cognitive capacity, it spends it.
A good way to connect? Meh. Passive use can lead to more loneliness, not less. Offline networks provide far more benefits than social media networks (Nowland, 2026). What’s more, I would suggest that MOST of what we do online has nothing to do with the people we actually know. An example being, it is likely that absolutely no one you know is posting in and amongst those reels/TikToks/Shorts you consumed for 45 minutes straight last night… So who are you connecting with? Your network, or the platform?
It’s part of being an athlete? Not inherently, no. Why would it be? Are you telling me you got into your sport to become a social media influencer and affiliate marketer (essentially the same thing often). I doubt it, but if you did then might I suggest the a more well targeted niche which like pranking or vlogging instead (please interpret my sarcasm and do not abandon your pursuits so quickly). This being said if brand deals and sponsorships is on your radar, then yes fair play. If you WANT to pursue that, then this should fall under deliberate use, rather than passive.
It’s just how things are? Why? Passive use of social media is NOT just a part of life. Like, you can go to the toilet without constantly inhaling stimuli and onboarding information. How about that just being a bit of you time? I’ve actually known many inspiring people to claim that their best inspirations and ideas have come to them while on the loo. A bit of an odd image, sure, but don’t deprive yourself of that. The underlying message here, is that we may think best when we actually have the space to think.
Social media is here to stay, yes. But it should not be inherent to our day to day lives. Especially if you are aiming for something challenging, which requires high performance and development. Yet, beyond app blockers and timers, I have seen very little support or guidance on what athletes and high performers can actually do about this. And that is what I intend to address this month.
I currently believe the answer (or an answer) lies not in the individual, but the systems through which they operate. But more on this as we progress through this month's series: Is Social Media Sabotaging Your Performance?
What’s Next?
Share your thoughts, share your experiences, and if you're comfortable, comment your results on those experiments (but only if you are willing to be honest).
Keep an eye on all things Fortis as I will be following this up for the month of June!
More to follow… Now put your phone down and do something else for half an hour. Or better yet, have a brew with no distractions for 5-10 minutes. The world can wait (assuming you’re not already late for something, in which case why did you read this so last minute, get going!)
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