Is the phone the comfort blanket we hope for?

When young infants explore a room, they usually stay close to their parents and then venture out, looking back or returning intermittently to check that they're safe. They return for a quick look or a touch. That back-and-forth is what gives them the confidence to keep exploring.

As we grow, that safe base becomes less obvious, but no less real. We retreat to friends or family when we're struggling. We offload our worries, feel steadied, and go back into the world with something restored. It's a rhythm that's worked for as long as we've had each other.

Social media offers the allure of that same grounding — a community that agrees, always available, wherever and whenever you reach for it.

But here's the problem: it looks like a safe base without behaving like one. Smartphones arrived faster than our physiological systems could evolve to understand them.

When you're anxious, you develop anxious expectations — a bias toward noticing threat, toward seeing everything in red. We all do; this is natural. A kind friend usually notices this in you before you do. They gently remind you that your feelings are colouring your perception. They offer a wider view. They help you recalibrate.

Social media does the opposite. Its algorithms show you more of what you already expect, more of whatever you engage with. If you're anxious and clicking on anxiety-provoking content, the feed obliges. You feel reassured that your fearful prediction was right, but you don't get the comfort you actually needed. The anxiety escalates instead.

So you seek reassurance. You check again, hoping for something soothing. The relief is short-lived. The worry returns, often sharper. You check again.

What you learn from that pattern isn't resilience — it's that you can't cope without checking. Your confidence erodes exactly where you needed it to grow.

If you notice yourself reaching for your phone more when you're worried, particularly to check social media, treat it as a signal worth listening to. It might be asking for something a screen can't give you: the textured, grounded presence of an actual person, a walk outside, a bit of wider perspective, a contradictory piece of evidence, or simply sitting with the feeling for a moment before trying to soothe it away.

Social media can be many things — a way to build community, a source of information. But in the attention-grabbing state it's in at the moment, a secure base isn't one of them. That requires something else: a steady human presence that has genuine care for your wellbeing.