Different from substance addiction, the use of social media and the addiction to it's consumption and interaction, is considered a psychological addiction, much like an addiction to gambling and to porn.Although considered a psychological addiction, brain scans show a similar impairment in regions that those with substance dependence have. Specifically there's a clear degradation in white matter in the regions in charge of emotional processing, attention and decision making.

A Psychological Drug?

Social media is a community effort, everyone is an asset.

The current programming of most social media offers immediate stimulating rewards with very little effort. Therefore the brain rewires itself to account for this overstimulation.If your brain is the one going through this change, you'll begin to crave more of these neurological excitements.

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5% to 10% of internet users struggle to control how much time they spend online.

Can't Log Off?

Studies have shown that when comparing heavy media users to others, they perform much worse at task switching tests.Heavy multitasking online actually impairs your ability to filter out interference and even decreases your brain's capability for commiting information to long term memory

Multitasking Fallacy

Have you ever felt like your phone vibrated when it actually didn't?You check for a notification because you felt a vibration or heard a ring, but nothing...This is a recent psychological phenomenon caused by our brains' rewiring due to heavy technological use.An itch ends up being interpreted as a buzz from our phones...

Phantom Vibration Syndrome

The more social media we have, the more we think we are connecting, yet we are really disconnecting from each other

While most people might think that relationships are likely going to be affected by all these downsides of social media, it has actually been found that a lot of relationships succeed when they begin online.What's the cause? You may ask...Well it's unclear, but it might be due to people being more open about what they want, since they're behind a screen and can disappear if it doesn't work out. It allows you to test the waters without getting too involved too quickly.Hence if you really know what you want and don't want, online dating could actually be a great tool to find a great match.

Are Relationships Getting Destroyed Or Built?

Since social media triggers the release of dopamine, scientist studied this, and they found that the reward systems in people's brains are much more active when they're talking about their own views.Around 80% of internet usage is about people posting about their own views, not listening, not sharing, but spreading their own ideas.

Your Life. Your Thoughts. Your Internet

The effects of social media on your body and on society.

Your brain may never be the same!
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Written and created by Mitchell Moffit (twitter @mitchellmoffit) and Gregory Brown (twitter @whalewatchmeplz).

Further Reading--

Abnormal White Matter Integrity in Adolescents with Internet Addiction Disorder: A Tract-Based Spatial Statistics Study
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0030253

Phantom vibrations among undergraduates: Prevalence and associated psychological characteristics
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563212000799

Cognitive control in media multitaskers
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/37/15583.abstract?sid=113b39d8-d0b5-4f46-b2a5-362ee79d0b61

Amygdala Volume and Social Network Size in Humans
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3079404/

What is the role of dopamine in reward: hedonic impact, reward
learning, or incentive salience?
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/psych/research&labs/berridge/publications/Berridge&RobinsonBrResRev1998.pdf

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