It is obvious that social media and technological advances have a significant effect on our society, but, according to a new research by AsapSCIENCE, social media use may have a considerable impact on our brains, too.
Addiction: According to the research, brain scans of those who frequently use social media showed a similar impairment of brain regions as those addicted to drugs. It was explained that frequent social media use provides neurological excitement, which can be addictive.
Itchy delusions: Have you ever felt your phone vibrate, just to look and find no notifications? This is what is referred to as the phantom vibration syndrome —  a psychological phenomenon that makes one think their phone vibrated when it actually did not. Regular social media use was found to cause our brains to perceive a physical phenomenon, such as an itch, as a vibration from our phone.
Multi-tasking: The belief that those who switch between work and social media are better at multi-tasking is not true. The research demonstrated that brains of social media users are not able to filter distractions and find it difficult to commit information to memory.
Selfish behaviour: Talking about ourselves on social media causes increased release of dopamine, a hormone linked to pleasure. Scientists found that we are much more self-centred on social media than we are offline.
It is not all bad though because the study also revealed that relationships that start on social media platforms are more likely to last.