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Fotuhi, Majid. “Dr. Fotuhi: Best Neurologist: Author: Speaker.” NeuroGrow Brain Fitness Center neuroloMajid Gy Clinic, NeuroGrow, 21 Jan. 2020, neurogrow.com/what-social-media-does-to-your-brain/. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024

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People who heavily use social media struggle with attention span. Research suggests that social media causes a shorter attention span because of neuroplasticity, the brain being able to change.

Article 1

Majid Fotuhi

2

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People who struggle to limit time on social media do not do as well on cognitive tests compared to light users. It takes more effort for heavy users to stay focused.

Article 1

Majid Fotuhi

2

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Social media is a pathway to receive immediate rewards by a release in dopamine. It trains a person's brain to want more of what triggered the dopamine. A social media user's brain is similar to a person's brain who is addicted to drugs, but only if it is used too often.

Article 1

Majid Fotuhi

2

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Transactive memory, "involved deciding what information is important enough to store in your brain," and can be affected by heavy use of social media. A study was conducted where one group of people were asked to record an experience at an event, and the other was told to just be present. The conclusion was that the people who recorded the event did not remember it as well, because their brain was sent signals that it did not need to hold information that was stored in another place.

Article 1

Majid Fotuhi

3

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Social Media Addiction: Recognize the Signs

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Social Media Addiction: Recognize the Signs

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Hilliard, Jena. “Social Media Addiction.” Addiction Center, Recovery Worldwide, LLC, 22 July 2024, www.addictioncenter.com/behavioral-addictions/social-media-addiction/. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.

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Social media addiction is, "being overly concerned about social media, driven by an uncontrollable urge to log on to or use social media, and devoting so much time and effort to social media that it impairs other important life areas."

Article 2

Jena Hilliard

1

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Social Media Addiction has similar characteristics to substance addiction, such as, mood, tolerance, withdrawal, and recurring back to social media. Around 5-10% of Americans have symptoms of social media addiction according to psychologists.

Article 2

Jena Hilliard

1

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Harvard University conducted a study and found that social media and using an addictive substance trigger the same part of the brain. The rewards system works by using positive reinforcement when dopamine levels rise.

Article 2

Jena Hilliard

2

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On social media people talk about themselves about 80% of the time, verses people only talking about themselves 30-40% of the time in the real world. People's reward centers respond most when people talk about themselves.

Article 2

Jena Hilliard

3

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Social media causes anxiety and depression from FOMO and comparing themselves to other people's "perfect" and filtered lives online.

Article 2

Jena Hilliard

4

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Miller, Caroline. “Does Social Media Use Cause Depression?” Child Mind Institute, Child Mind Institute, 30 Oct. 2023, childmind.org/article/is-social-media-use-causing-depression/. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.

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Social media causes people to interact more online than in the real world, and therefore people feel less connected because they lose true human interaction. A study from Twenge proved that girls who interacted online, as well as offline, do not have an increase in depressive symptoms.

Article 3

Caroline Miller

3

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Clinical psychologist Jerry Burbrick said, "FOMO is really the fear of not being connected to our social world, and that need to feel connected sometimes trumps whatever's going on in the actual situation we're in. The more we use social media, the less we think about being present in the moment."

Article 3

Caroline Miller

4

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Having low self esteem stems from comparing oneself to people who are more attractive, wealthier, or more popular on social media. These thoughts can trigger anxiety and depression.

Article 3

Caroline Miller

4

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Social media can cause people to stay up later because people plan to get on it for a few minutes, but it spirals into hours.

Article 3

Caroline Miller

6

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Gilheany, Rory. “Dopamine: Social Media’s Fuel.” Brainspace, June 2024, pp. 22–23. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=f87219d2-c14b-32c0-a6dd-18469016928c. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024

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Neurotransmitters send information between parts of the body to signal emotions. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that signals a person is having a positive experience or is happy.

Article 4

Rory Gilheany

1

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When people have enjoyable experiences, it triggers their reward center and sends a burst of dopamine signalling they are having a good time. When people receive likes and followers on social media, it creates a burst of dopamine that people continue to desire.

Article 4

Rory Gilheany

2

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Social media has made dopamine easily accessible, and with a few pushes of a button, a person's brain has a rush of dopamine. It is so accessible it could possibly be causing an addiction.

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Sunter, Nicola. “How Does Social Media Affect Your Sleep?” Www.sleepstation.org.uk, Sleepstation, 9 Mar. 2020, www.sleepstation.org.uk/articles/sleep-tips/social-media/. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.

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Social media usage has rose from 5% in 2012 to 70% in 2020, and the average time has increased from 90 minutes to two and a half hours every day.

Article 5

Nicola Sunter

1

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When people stay up on social media, their eyes are exposed to blue light which tells the body to stay awake and melatonin levels decrease.

Article 5

Nicola Sunter

2

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Being on social media delays the time we go to sleep because the usage begins to spiral, which results in people staying up later.

Article 5

Nicola Sunter

5

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FOMO can be caused from feeling guilty for not responding to notifications or people compromise their sleep and stay online, which can cause anxiety.

Article 5

Nicola Sunter

5

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Another reason people lose sleep from social media is the notifications that ping throughout the night and can wake someone up. This leads to the person checking the notification and getting even less sleep as the blue light emits through their screen.

Article 5

Nicola Sunter

6

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Melatonin is a hormone that causes the brain to slow down and signal it is time to rest. Blue light has more of an affect on melatonin than any other wavelength.

Article 5

Nicola Sunter

3

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Magazine, Psychologs. “How Social Media Affects Our Attention Span.” Psychologs Magazine | Mental Health Magazine | Psychology Magazine | Self-Help Magazine, Psychologs, 19 Jan. 2024, www.psychologs.com/how-social-media-affects-our-attention-span/. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024

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People expect to be on social media for short periods of time, but it spirals into scrolling for an hour. Even after an hour of scrolling, people still cannot remember the things they just watched.

Article 6

Psychology Magazine

1

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Social media is meant for people to communicate without limitation, show off to followers, and learn new things. However, it causes people to feel lonely and compare themselves to others.

Article 6

Psychology Magazine

2

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American Psychological Association defines attention span as, "the length of time an individual can concentrate on one specific task or other item of interest."

Article 6

Psychologs

2

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It is easier for a person to concentrate when it takes longer for them to shift their focus from one subject to the next. Social media makes it hard for people to focus because of the constant notifications and need to respond.

Article 6

Psycholog Magazine

2

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Paraphrase - Risk of short attention span

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Paraphrase - Risk of short attention span

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1. difficulty communicating thoughts

2. does not pay close attention to detail (leaves room for error)

3. cannot complete daily tasks

4. poor self-care and unhealthy habits

5. decrease in performance

Article 6

Psychology Magazine

3

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"Attention span is affected by the increased use of social media as there is no scarcity of content on the social media platforms and the mindless scrolling makes an individual shift from one stimulus to another in no time."

Article 6

Psycholog Magazine

3

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"the constant stimulation that we receive from social platforms, paired with the constant influx of information in our daily lives affects our brain's ability to maintain attention over some time."

Article 6

Psycholog Magazine

3

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Cognivite biases is, "ways in which our brains' patterns make us vulnerable to errors in judgment, manipulation, and exploitation." The brain tricks people into believing false information by taking shortcuts.

Article 7

5

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Version, Alpha. “Social Media and the Brain.” Www.humanetech.com, 17 Aug. 2021, www.humanetech.com/youth/social-media-and-the-brain. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024.

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Social Media is a form of persuasive technology. because of the algorithm following people's interests. It attacks people' cognitive biases, and causes them to scroll for hours at a time.

Article 7

10

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When a person is sent a notification it triggers the salience network in the Brain, which helps people decide what is and is not important. However, the notifications were created to draw people into the app, not to give important information.

Article 7

10

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When a person receives one negative comment, they tend to focus on that comment rather than the other positive ones. This is because, "negative information gets more attention and shapes emotion and behavior more powerfully than positive information does."

Article 7

10

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"Our brains' process negative information, especially if it causes fear, more quickly and thoroughly than positive information. Social Media content that generates fear, anger, or disgust sees higher engagement, and spreads much more quickly, than positive content."

Article 7

10

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Social Media makes are feeds full of, "high curated images featuring people in select moments showing only what they want you to see, validated by likes that activate powerful reward circuits in the brain." This creates an atmosphere for people to compare themselves to what they learn and how to fit in.

Article 7

11

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"Our brains' process rejection and physical pain using some of the same neural pathways, meaning that when your feelings get hurt, your brain processes it in a similar way to how it processes physical pain."

Article 7

11

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"Our brains' process rejection and physical pain using some of the same neural pathways, meaning that when your feelings get hurt, your brain processes it in a similar way to how it processes physical pain."

Article 7

11

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Algorithms learn what the people are interested in and use it to fill people's feed.

Article 7

11

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The prefrontal cortex is, "the area of the brain that helps us process and direct our attention based on our goals." It is the last area of the brain to develop, so it can be harmful to youth, and cause permanent change to their brain structure affecting how their emotions, behavior, and thought processing.

Article 7

16

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Yu, Tingrong, and Gen Zhang. “College Students’ Social Media Addiction and Sleep Problems: Chain Mediating Effects of Fear of Missing out and Nocturnal Social Media Use.” Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, vol. 51, no. 6, June 2023, pp. 1–9. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.12176. Accessed 7 Oct. 2024.

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"Sleep is a physiological and psychological cyclical state that is essential for maintaining physical and mental health"

Article 8

Zhang Yu

1

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Social Media addiction occurs when social media begins to distract a person from daily life and interfere with psychological functions. Sleep is a function that can be interrupted due to cognitive arousal. Social Media can affect people's sleep patterns and "trigger inductive fatigue and neurasthenia."

Article 8

Zhang Yu

2

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People with social media addiction have an increased chance of being active on platforms before they go to bed. This can cause sleeping issues because using social media before bed can cause cognitive and emotional arousal, which according to sleep disturbance process theory, can excite neurons and cause sleep disturbances.

Article 8

Zhang Yu

2

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A study showed that fomo had a direct effect on social media use at night, which causes a person to stay up longer and have poorer sleep.

Article 8

Zhang Yu

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The study concluded that heavy social media use is linked to sleep problems. Social Media addicts are constantly worried about their notifications which keeps the brain active longer, making it harder to sleep.

Article 8

Zhang Yu