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• Posted January 14, 2026

Shop 'Til You Drop? Online Shopping Linked To Higher Stress Levels

Are you trying to lower your stress by scrolling eBay for rare finds, or shopping Amazon for bargains?

You might be barking up the wrong tree, a new study says.

Online shopping is more strongly linked to stress than reading the news, checking your inbox or watching porn, researchers reported Jan. 9 in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

“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,” lead researcher Mohammad Belal, a doctoral student at Aalto University in Finland, said in a news release.

For the new study, researchers followed the internet habits of nearly 1,500 German people over seven months, using a tracking program that showed where they scrolled and for how long.

In all, the team compared data from nearly 47 million web visits and 14 million app uses, to participants’ self-reported stress.

Results showed that time spent on shopping-related internet use was associated with increased stress, whether people were bargain hunting on mobile devices or desktop computers.

Meanwhile, folks who read e-mails or news reported lower stress levels, researchers found. 

The same went for online porn.

“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, researchers found a strong connection between internet use in general and higher stress, especially among people who already experience a lot of stress in their daily life.

However, it’s hard to tell which way the relationship runs, researchers said — do people go to the internet or online shop to relieve stress, or does scrolling or shopping cause more stress?

“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? It’s really crucial that we study these issues further so we can solve that chicken and egg problem,” senior researcher Juhi Kulshrestha, an assistant professor of computer science at Aalto University, said in a news release.

“Putting a blanket ban or upper limits on certain kinds of internet usage may not actually end up solving the issues, and could even take away a vital support for people who are struggling,” she said.

The researchers plan to delve deeper into the matter – for example by seeing whether different types of news are related to stress and well-being.

“As we gain increasingly accurate information about people’s internet usage, it will be possible to design new kinds of tools that people can use to regulate their browsing and improve their well-being,” Kulshrestha said.

More information

Harvard Medical School has more on protecting the brain from stress.

SOURCES: Aalto University, news release, Jan. 9, 2026; Journal of Medical Internet Research, Jan. 9, 2026