Social media cause anxiety and the American Psychological Society rings the alarm about the increasing rates of addicted users.
The users are almost always online, constantly checking their Instagram and Facebook accounts.
In a Cornell University survey, the users were asked to stay offline for 99 days and describe their mood every 33 days. Research has shown that it is extremely difficult for most of them to impose themselves and stay offline.
The latest data is about Instagram and who our brain loves it. The paradox with Instagram is that, while many promote false profiles that create a sense of inferiority to users, the users continue using it.
Photos on social media are often far from reality. However, more than 500 million people use Instagram every day, number that corresponds to the entire EU population. So why is this tool so popular and what happens to our brain when we use it?
Dar Messi, a neuroscientist at Michigan State University, examined people using social media via magnetic resonance imaging. The researcher concluded that when we accept or like and when we control our friends’ social media activity, the brain’s «reward system» is activated.
Messi explains that this happens because being in a group is very important to each of us and we also want to be liked by the others. Although he doesn’t want to characterize it as an addiction, he cites cases of who people had problems, such as insomnia or lack of concentration, because they couldn’t stop using social media.
Media ethics professor, Petra Grimm, wonders if our tendency to compare ourselves to others is innate or culturally shaped.
The mental health of the users
But who is responsible for the state of mental health of the users on social networking platforms? Grimm believes that social media organizations are responsible for this. But she says it would be naive to expect changes from them that would put in danger their business. The role of school education is crucial, she adds.
