The influence of social media on our brain
Social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube are being used by at least 1/3 of the world's population. Even more shocking is that ½ of these people communicate more often online than in real life. We have often enough heard that social media are bad for us as they distract and diminish the intensity of social contacts and relationships. But what only a small minority knows is, that social media are more dangerous than previously thought as they have a direct effect on our brain.
Our brain is malleable and is one of the few organs that continually develops. This in simple terms means that it adapts to its environment: the daily life that we have including physical activity, the food we eat, the mental work we do, the sleep patterns we have etc. all have an effect on how our brain functions. So it is no surprise that how often and how intensive social media is used by a person is reflected by his brain activity. Healthy brains will continually make links and establish relationships between different topics. So how do social media affect our brains?
Social media are addictive. 5-10% of all users can already no longer control how much time they spend on the platforms. Researchers from the University of Chicago have found that the desire for social media platforms has become higher than the desire for alcohol and nicotine (Only the need for sleep and sex is even bigger). However, in comparison to the addiction to drugs, social media addiction is not physical but rather psychological. Nevertheless, the brain is affected in a similar way; there is a reduction of white brain mass and the attention span, emotional intelligence and processing and decisiveness are all diminished. Adding to that the “dose” has to be increased with time for the same rewarding effects to be reached.
Several studies have falsified the assertion that social media users are better at multi-tasking. It has been scientifically proven that frequent social media users are worse at handling and coping with interruptions and distractions. (The average attention span today is 5 seconds while it was 12 minutes only 10 years ago! … Figures like that should open our eyes and make us question our actions.) This all leads to the fact that they have a reduced ability to memorize things and link different topics together (creation of rich knowledge). At the same time, researchers have found that many people however also do no longer have the will to remember things as they know that they can always access any information online … but that is a different topic.
As social media use mostly affects the frontal cortex of the brain, the center that helps us empathize with other people (and animals), helps us control impulses, plan and organize things and that helps us control frustration, these media also make us more self-centered and lonely. An American study has for example been able to show that while only 30-40% of all contents in real conversations revolve around own opinions and views, it is 80% online. Excessive social media use also leads to many other psychological and social problems. They make people frustrated, anxious, aggressive, depressed, unconfident, less able to communicate freely in real life and cause sleeping problems. This is caused by the fact that the reward of the brain reacts directly to social assessment which the social media are full of: like and dislike buttons, post reactions, perfect images of stars etc. This makes many people less confident of their own qualities and bodies. The dependence on the confirmation of others, which is similar to the one of a child to a mother, also makes it more difficult for people to develop their own ideas.
On the other hand, other research papers have claimed that social media help to make young people more creative, better in communicating and more open towards other ideas, perspectives, and cultures. So what side should we believe? Or are there both positive and negative things in social media that we just have to learn to balance?
Sources:
https://www.brain-effect.com/magazin/social-media-nutzung-veraendert-das-gehirn