The Hidden Impact of Influencer Culture on Your Mental Health | InsightsWellbeing

Let’s be real. Influencer culture can feel like being in a fun party, until you realize you’re comparing yourself to everyone else’s highlight reels and it hurts, more than you might notice. Here’s what I’ve been seeing lately, what science backs up, and what might help if you feel weighed down by it.

Seeing the Perfect, Feeling Less Perfect

You open your phone. Someone posted their morning routine, flawless skin, perfect outfit, glowing coffee mug, all in soft light. Then another post: “Just 5 minutes of gratitude can change your life.” You pause. You feel a twinge: “I haven’t done any of that today.”

That little moment isn’t harmless. When your feed mostly shows the polished bits, it sets a standard that feels impossible.

1. A 2024 study called “It’s really hard to strike a balance: The role of digital influencers in shaping youth mental health” found that young people do get inspired by influencers—they try mindfulness, journaling, therapy—but often, those same young people feel pressure or guilt when they can't live those habits perfectly.
2. Another recent piece, Beyond the Filter: Impact of Popularity on the Mental Health of Social Media Influencers (2024), shows that many influencers themselves feel distress. The more followers, the more public scrutiny, and often more negative emotion.

What Gets Hidden

When influencer culture is everywhere, some bad side effects sneak in. Stuff you might not connect right away, but which adds up.

1. Comparison fatigue. Not just “oh they look better than me,” but constant measuring. How they rest, how they travel, how they succeed. Over time, this drains you.
2. Self-worth tied to filters and metrics. If a post gets fewer likes or comments, some days you feel less “seen.” The algorithm becomes like an invisible judge.
3. Overexposure to “perfect moments.” People show peak moments. Rarely is the struggle. The struggle gets hidden. Then the listener thinks: “Why is everyone else so together except me?”
4. Mental health advice mixed with product selling or oversimplification. “Try this hack, buy this supplement, take this test,” often without explaining where it works and where it might not. Sometimes fear is used in the message: miss this, you’ll be unhealthy.
5. For example, a 2025 analysis found that many influencer posts promoting health-tests (like full-body MRI, gut microbiome tests, AMH tests, etc.) highlight benefits but skip or downplay risks and overdiagnosis.
6. Misinformation. A Guardian investigation in 2025 showed more than half of the top #mentalhealthtips TikToks had some misleading or wrong claims—using therapeutic language loosely, promising quick cures.

Why It Feels So Heavy

You might ask: Why does all of this sting so much? Because it’s everywhere, and it quietly shapes how you see yourself.

1. Algorithms push what engages — so perfection, positivity, product placement often win.
2. Our brains are wired to compare. Visual content, especially of people who look like social success, hits hard.
3. Life is messy. Real lives have off-days, failures. When those are missing from feeds, you're measuring yourself to someone else’s movie trailer.
4. 
   

What Seems to Help (Because Some Influencer Content DOES Good)

Not everything from influencers is bad. Some posts, creators, voices help in real ways.

1. Influencers who share openness: their mental health struggles, therapy journeys, bad days. That vulnerability helps people feel less alone.
2. When influencers work with health experts or use evidence-based tools and share them, it often leads to better awareness. There’s a 2024 project called “Influencing the Influencers” (Boston University SPH working with mental health creators) that showed giving creators training/booklets improved the accuracy and helpfulness of content, and people engaged with it.
3. Communities with real talk, not polished walls. Spaces (online or offline) where people share their low moments too — those feel grounding.

What You Can Do When You Feel It

If reading this makes you nod like “Yes, I feel that,” here are some ways to push back so it doesn’t wear you down.

1. Curate your feed: Unfollow or mute creators whose content makes you feel worse. Follow those who feel more real, who talk about imperfections.
2. Let yourself feel bad sometimes. If you read a post and feel “not enough,” don’t shove that down. Journaling, talking out loud helps.
3. Limit exposure. Maybe no social media in the first hour after waking, or just a short scroll limit. The less you compare, the less the guilt.
4. Check the source. When someone says “this supplement fixes anxiety,” look up whether studies back it up. See if there's real risk.
5. Talk to someone. A friend, family, or therapist. Sometimes hearing your inner voice say “this feels off” is enough to start healing.

Conclusion

Influencer culture has power—it shapes ideas, norms, our sense of self. It can lift us, and it can also tug us downward in small ways we don’t always notice.

If this feels familiar, know it’s not your fault. Growing up online is tricky. But you deserve better: real ease, kindness, and being you — not chasing what looks good.

If you want help untangling how influencer culture affects your mind, InsightsWellbeing is here. Let’s work through it together. Book your session now and start feeling more real, more grounded, more you.

FAQs

Q: Can all influencer content be harmful?

No — some of it is uplifting, helpful, honest. The trouble starts when it’s only polished, comparison-based, or when you feel bad after viewing.

Q: Does following more influencers mean worse mental health?

Not always. It depends on who they are, how you interact with their content, and how aware you are of the effects. Some people follow many and feel fine; others follow a few and feel drained.

Q: What’s “overdiagnosis” in influencer health content?

It means suggesting medical conditions/tests when they’re not really needed — creating anxiety, pushing people to do tests or buy items that might not help or might even harm.

Q: Is it enough to limit social media time?

It helps, yes. But curating what you see, how you feel about what you see, and connecting with people in real life often matters more.

Q: What if I feel anxious or bad all the time because of what I see online?

You’re not alone. Talking to someone trained — maybe via therapy or even an exploratory call with someone who understands — can help you shift perspective and reclaim your self-worth.

References

Adeane, E. & Stasiak, K. (2024). “It’s really hard to strike a balance: The role of digital influencers in shaping youth mental health”. SAGE Publications. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20552076241288059

Azayem, A. K., Nawaz, F. A., Jeyaseelan, L., et al. (2024). Beyond the Filter: Impact of Popularity on the Mental Health of Social Media Influencers. SAGE Publications. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20552076241287843

Influencing the Influencers: How TikTok Can Promote Positive Mental Health (Boston University SPH, 2024). https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2024/influencing-the-influencers-how-tiktok-can-promote-positive-mental-health/

“Influencers are fearmongering to promote health tests with limited evidence, study finds.” (University of Sydney / JAMA Network Open, reported in The Guardian, 2025). https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/27/social-media-influencers-are-fearmongering-to-promote-health-tests-with-limited-evidence-study-finds

“More than half of top 100 mental health TikToks contain misinformation, study finds.” (The Guardian, 2025) https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/31/more-than-half-of-top-100-mental-health-tiktoks-contain-misinformation-study-finds