Is Social Media Ruining Our Minds?

→ HOW Social Media is RUINING Our minds Are you accustomed to receiving your news in 140 characters? Watching videos in under 10 minutes? If so, you may be changing the way your brain works. Studies show that social media has a profound effect on the human mind, something we should all be aware of. What is Being Afected by Social Media? IT'S SURPRISING HOW MANY AREAS OF OUR LIVES ARE AFFECTED BY SOCIAL MEDIA. Scientists are looking at: NEWS . Ability to focús Multitasking skills Social interacțions Just to name a few. All of these areas appear to be drastically affected by online participation. |Speeding life Up Much has been said about our increasing impatience, and much of it is attributed to the fact that everything is instantly available to us these days. Just how much does this affect us? Allention Span > The average attention span at present is just 5 seconds long. - Ten years ago, it was 12 minutes. THAT'S A PRETTY DRASTIC CHANGE • Younger people have shorter attention spans than the elderly. THIS INDICATES THAT SOCIAL MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY HAVE AN EFFECT, AS OPPOSED TO AGE. • 25% forget the names or details of close friends and even relatives. EFFECTS OF A SHORTENED ATTENTION SPAN 7% of people forget their own birthdays from time to time. • Forgotten pots and pans on the stove. • In the UK last year, £1.6 billion of damage was caused by lack of concentration. Interruptions Every time we start a new task, the brain has to reorient itself. Interruptions can be deadly to production, yet the Internet is designed to distract. • The average office worker checks his email inbox 30-40 times an hour. * Nearly once every 1.5 minutes! 500,000 people join Twitter every day. 12 million Twitter users follow 64 or more Twitter accounts, and 1.5 million follow over 511 accounts. People spend 700 billion minutes on f Facebook every month. Facebook users install 20 41.6% of people access million apps every day, email on the mobile phone. most of which are distractions. Rewiring Dur Brains Brains are constantly changing and adapting, according to our experiences. They don't simply sit there in our heads, but instead grow and adjust. We would be remiss in thinking that hours spent online every day don't have an effect on one of the most important organs in the body. A study done on comprehension found that people who read text only understood far more than those who read text Some claim social media O makes us more self-centered. A 2009 study of college students found that 57% felt their generation uses social media to seek out attention integrated with video. and self-promote. Video is a popular part of social media, but it actually disrupts our concentration. 40% of college students agreed that social media self-promotion and attention seeking was useful for getting ahead in the world. A UCLA study showed that just 5 hours of Internet surfing can change the way your brain works. More activity is seen in the problem-solving and decision-making areas of the brain than in those who do not use the Internet. SOCIAL MEDIA/INTERNET ADDICTION IS REAL STUDENTS ASKED TO GIVE UP MEDIA FOR 24 HOURS HAD THE FOLLOWING SYMPTOMS: (() Phantom phone vibrations Reaching for a phone that wasn't there Fidgeting and restlessness O It's All About the Hormones Social networking has an actual chemical effect on our brains. Oxytocin, the hormone that stimulates trust and empathy, spikes when social media users are online. Social networking can stimulate the same type of hormonal response as talking to friends or family. This hormone is usually released during face-to-face social interactions. Stress hormones also tend to drop, according to recent studies, while users tweet. • Adrenaline is released when we respond to a sudden change in environment, and social media is a series of changes, giving the body plenty of cause to send out bursts of this addictive hormone. The effects of social media on the human brain are still not a popular research topic, but there are definite changes. You can observe these yourself if you look at how your attention span has changed in the past several years. As time goes on, we will learn more about how the brain reacts... hopefully it won't be too late to make adjustments. INFOGRAPHIC SPONSORED BY: Sources AssistedLivingToday INFORMATION YOU CAN TRUST http://mashable.com/2010/08/02/stats-time-spent- online/ http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/05/ff_nicholas _carr/all/1 http://blog.cognifit.com/2011/06/is-social-media-affecting-our-brains.html http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/09/02/20-stunning-social-media-statistics! http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-32947166/tweet-love-how-social-networking- affects-your-brain/?tag=bnetdomain http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1153583/social-websites-harm-childrens-brains- chilling-warning-parents-neuroscientist.html http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/06/losing-our-minds-to-the-web/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/3522781/stress-of-modern-life-cuts- attention-spans-to-five-minutes.html http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-03-31/tech/30049251 1 twitter-accounts-active- twitter-user-simple-answer