Despite all the warnings, the average adult spends 2 hours and 27 minutes a day on social media. And this is our new reality: too much of life is already tied to social media to just give it up (although it is still worth striving to spend less time on them).
Meanwhile, networks are slowly influencing the most sacred thing – our brain. Just look at what happens to it every time you refresh your news feed and like it again and again.
If you want to save money, start by deleting social media from your phone: A study back in 2013 confirmed a direct link between heavy social media use among people with “strong ties” to close friends with higher levels of credit card debt, as well as a higher body mass index.
The authors of the study believe that it is all about the thirst for emotions: after looking at evidence of other people’s strong emotions, we want to get our own – at least from impulsive shopping.
…and sends hunger signals (even though we recently ate)
Don’t trust the feeling of hunger if it appeared after scrolling through your social media feed, especially if there are a lot of pictures of food.
A 2015 study confirmed that the brain perceives so-called “food porn” (that is, those very images of delicious dishes) as an image of real food and reacts accordingly – releasing hormones responsible for the feeling of hunger.
And even if we ate a big meal just an hour ago, we are still drawn to chew something. The insidious, insidious brain!
Activates reward centers
Those same likes that we receive from friends and acquaintances activate the reward center, the nucleus accumbens, and thus release the neurotransmitter dopamine. In small doses, this will be comparable to the pleasure of eating a chocolate bar, but if you press this button harder and more often, a real addiction can form.
The volume of gray matter changes
Constantly exploring social media affects brain structure: A 2018 study published in the journal Social Neuroscience confirmed a correlation between the size of an online social network and the distribution and volume of gray matter.
Thus, people who spend a lot of time on social networks tend to have a larger volume of gray matter in those areas of the brain that are associated with socio-semantic tasks: recognizing members of a social group, understanding their state and motives.
The brain loses the ability to multitask
The more actions we perform simultaneously on social networks, the worse our ability to switch from task to task, and even more so to cope with several simultaneously in real life. Moreover, the most difficult tasks are those requiring constant and concentrated attention.
So, when planning serious work, it’s really better to turn off social networks.