Big Question:
What are the effects of social media
on the brain?
Discuss this question with your partner. Then write your answer in the space
below.
- Creates an addiction
- It’s like a cycle, boredom -> social media, no social
media = boredom…
[“This is Your Brain on Instagram: The Effects of Social
Media on the Brain” by Kelly McSweeney 2019
As you read
● Highlight in Blue: Key data or statistics.
● Highlight in Yellow: Evidence of social media’s effect on the brain.
● Highlight in Red: Key terms (e.g., "dopamine," "FOMO").
● Underline Sentences: Connections between ideas.
In the last 15 years, social media has become such a big part of our lives that we
don’t even notice how much time we’re spending on it. Statista reports that the
average person spends 135 minutes on social media each day, following an upward
trend of increasing time spent on social media each year. This raises the question:
What are the effects of social media on the brain?
Psychology: Comparison Is the Thief of Joy
A University of Pennsylvania study examined how social media use causes fear of
missing out (“FOMO”). In the study, one group of participants limited their time on
social media to 30 minutes a day, while a control group continued to use Facebook,
Snapchat and Instagram as usual. The researchers tracked the participants’ social
media time automatically via iPhone battery usage, screen shots, and participants
completed surveys about their mood and well-being. After three weeks, the
participants who limited social media said that they felt less depressed and lonely
than people who had no social media limits.
Psychologist Melissa Hunt led the study. She explained, “Using less social media
than you normally would leads to significant decreases in both depression and
loneliness. These effects are particularly pronounced3 for folks who were more
depressed when they came into the study.”
Hunt suggests that the reason for feeling depressed after spending too much time on Underline: The connection
between comparison and
social networks boils down to comparison. When viewing someone else’s curated life negative feelings.
online, it’s easy to see their perfect pictures and think their lives are better than yours. Comment: How does the
author explain the relationship
between social media use and
depression?
Physiology: Brain Chemistry Leaves Us Craving More “Likes”
Neuroscientists are studying the effects of social media on the brain and finding that
positive interactions (such as someone liking your tweet) trigger the same kind of
chemical reaction that is caused by gambling and recreational drugs.
Underline: The connection
According to an article by Harvard University researcher Trevor Haynes, when you between dopamine and
get a social media notification, your brain sends a chemical messenger called variable reward schedules.
dopamine along a reward pathway, which makes you feel good. Dopamine is Comment: How does the
brain’s response to social
associated with food, exercise, love, gambling, drugs... and now, social media. media mimic other
Variable reward schedules make it worse. When rewards are delivered randomly6 (as addictions?
with a slot machine7 or a positive interaction on social media), and checking for the
reward is easy, the dopamine-triggering behavior becomes a habit.
Side Effects of Social Media on the Brain
Spending too much time on social media isn’t just a bad habit; it can have real
consequences. Science shows that we are basically carrying around little dopamine
stimulators in our pockets, so it’s not surprising that we’re constantly distracted by
our phones. A TED video explains that social media makes us bad at multitasking
and causes phantom vibration syndrome, which is when you feel like your phone is
buzzing even though it’s not.
Just like a gambling or substance addiction, social media addiction involves broken
reward pathways in our brains. Social media provides immediate rewards — in the
form of attention from your network — for minimal effort through a quick thumb tap.
Therefore, the brain rewires itself, making you desire likes, retweets, emoji applause
and so on. According to TED, five to 10 percent of internet users are psychologically
addicted and can’t control how much time they spend online. Brain scans of social
media addicts are similar to those of drug-dependent brains: there is a clear change in
the regions of the brain that control emotions, attention and decision making.
To make things worse, according to TED, the reward centers in our brains are most
active when we’re talking about ourselves. In real life, people talk about themselves
30 to 40 percent of the time; social media is all about showing off your life, so people
talk about themselves a whopping 80 percent of the time. When a person posts a Comment: How does the
picture and gets positive social feedback, it stimulates the brain to release dopamine, author connect self-centered
behavior on social media to
which again rewards that behavior and perpetuates the social media habit. addiction?
Independent response
Why do people struggle to control themselves when they use social media?
Claim People often struggle to control their social media use because social media can be as addictive as
drugs or gambling.
Evidence
Reasoning
Discussion
Initial thoughts
Do you think the
most teens suffer
from social
media Thoughts after discussion
addiction? What
evidence do you
have of this?
What can be
done about it?
