62% of content creators experience burnout. This comes from a survey of 542 creators in North America, carried out by the organisation Creators 4 Mental Health together with the agency Lupiani Insights & Strategies and published in November 2025. The organisation is led by Shira Lazar, who describes creators as small business owners.
It is not just about exhaustion
The survey also describes the harsher end of the spectrum. 10% of respondents reported suicidal thoughts linked to their work, roughly double the rate in the general American population. Amanda T. Yarnell, Senior Director of the Center for Health Communication at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who worked on the study, placed this in the context of the industry. “Creators are critical sources of information, support, and solidarity for billions of people, as well as the engines of a $200 billion economy,” she said.
Money is the main source of uncertainty
69% of creators report financial insecurity and unpredictable income from their work. Burnout is more common among those who have been creating for at least five years, that is, among more established creators rather than newcomers.
Care that understands the work is missing
89% of respondents lack access to specialised psychological care that would understand the nature of their work. Pressure to perform is constant. 69% of creators feel stressed by how their content performs, and 58% experience a drop in self-worth when their content does not work.
Comparable data is missing for Europe
The sample is North American and cannot be taken as European data. Yet creator work is increasingly being addressed as work in Europe too, from protecting the people who do it, to platforms, to pressure for algorithmic transparency. Europe has the tools for this, but a comparable survey on creators' mental health is still missing.
The market has learned to treat creators as businesses. The study shows the bill that a company's support structure would normally soften, and that creators do not have.
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