How Social Media Changes The Brain; Technology continues to evolve with us in every part of our lives. Every day we are faced with a new innovation. One of the biggest of these innovations is definitely the internet. Since the Internet has entered our lives, we have been able to do our jobs easily or access any information we want easily. The data show that 56% of the world’s population uses the internet and 45% uses social media.
As can be understood from these data, social media and its effects on our lives are quite large. The internet brings with it different innovations day by day. One of them, of course, is social media. Almost everyone uses these platforms nowadays.
Social media sites are used by a third of the world. This situation has started to have a huge impact on our society. What about our brains?
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1) It’s Addictive!
Can’t log out too? Interestingly, 5-10% of internet users cannot control the time they spend on the internet. Although, unlike substance addiction, it is a psychological addiction, brain scans of these people showed that similar areas of their brains were damaged with substance abusers.
2) White Matter in the Brain Decreases!
In particular, there was a clear reduction in white matter in the areas of the brain that control emotional processing, attention, and decision making. This is not a positive thing.
3) It Makes a Drug Effect!
Because social media provides quick response with very little effort, your brain begins to reconfigure itself and predisposes you to these impulses. And after each interaction, you start craving that neurological excitement even more. Sounds a bit like a drug, doesn’t it?
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4) Multiple Vision Weakens Memory!
There are some differences in the ability to do many things at the same time. You might think that those who are constantly commuting between work and websites, or who use social media constantly, can multitask at the same time.
But studies show that media-heavy users did far worse on task-switching tests than others. The more multitasking online, the less your brain’s ability to get rid of intrusive interference. It even complicates your brain’s ability to memorize information.
5) It Causes Different Psychological Disorders!
You feel something like your phone vibrating in the middle of a productive work…
Wait a minute…
Did it really tremble? This is Ghost Vibration Syndrome. When you think your phone is ringing but it hasn’t, this is actually a new psychological state. In one study, 89% of respondents said they experienced this condition at least once every two weeks. It seems that our brain perceives an itch in our body as a phone vibration.
As crazy as it may seem, technology is reconfiguring our nervous system. And our brains are experiencing triggers like never before in their history.
Can People Be Wildly Selfish?
Social media also triggers the release of dopamine, known as the “feel-good chemical”. In MRI scans, scientists determined that the reward center in the human brain is more active when a person talks about their own thoughts than those of others. This is not so surprising.
We all like to talk about ourselves, right? But it seems that 30-40% of face-to-face conversations consist of talking about our own experiences, while 80% of social media communications are about ourselves. The same part of your brain involved in orgasm, motivation, and love is stimulated by your social media use.
And of course, this is even more so when you know that you are addressing an audience. Our bodies reward us physiologically as we talk about ourselves online.
But everything is not just self-centered. There is research done on relationships. Partners are more likely to like each other if they first met online rather than in person. We don’t know if people’s identity on the internet is more obscure or they talk about their future goals more openly, but there is a statistical increase in the success of online relationships.
As physical distance increases, although the internet changes our verbal communication, we are perhaps getting closer to those we care about most.
