During the 2026 Winter Olympics, Denmark’s women’s curling team chose to stay off social media around training sessions and matches.
The team found that their phones and social media content distracted them from their performance, according to DR Sporten.
Skip Madeleine Dupont also changed her own habits. She removed curling-related content from her social media feeds because she felt that engaging with it required too much energy.
The issue does not only affect elite athletes. Sports physiologist Lars Johansen from Team Danmark also told DR Sporten that recreational athletes can be affected.
Also read: Men's heart disease risk starts climbing in the 30s, long before symptoms appear
The brain gets tired
According to to Johansen, the explanation lies in mental fatigue. When the brain is strained by social media, you may feel tired more quickly and have less motivation to continue a demanding activity.
One study examined athletes who used social media for 30 minutes before an endurance test. Overall, they performed 10 percent worse than a control group that had watched linear television, according to DR Sporten.
DR Sporten reports that this corresponded to a drop in VO2 max of just under four percent.
It is all about timing
Johansen does not believe the solution is to give up social media entirely. Instead, he recommends avoiding it in the hours before exercise, competitions, or other situations where you want to perform well.
Also read: Kidney stones: How they feel and when to seek help
And the difference is significant. According to Johansen, the reduction in physical capacity is comparable to the effect of smoking three to four cigarettes immediately before performing.
Also read: Green tea pills linked to liver failure: what the NIH safety data shows
This article is made and published by Ida-Marie Palm Varbæk, who may have used AI in the preparation.