Social Media Affects Our Brains

You’ve heard that social media is screwing with your brain. Maybe you even read about it on social media. (So meta; so messed up.) The neurochemical culprit, dopamine, spikes when you like and get liked, share and are shared. You’ve probably also heard scientists compare the affliction to drug or alcohol addiction. That’s fair. The same part of the brain lights up.

Having your posts liked, and liking other people's posts, on social media activates your brain's reward center. This is one of the reasons why social scrolling can be so addictive. What's more, the more likes a post or photo has, the greater the reward. "Viewing photos with many (compared with few) likes was associated with greater activity in neural regions implicated in reward processing, social cognition, imitation, and attention," a study published in the journal Psychological Science revealed.

Credits:
https://www.wired.com/story/learn-from-these-bugs-dont-let-social-media-zombify-you/amp?__twitter_impression=true