Social Media Addiction

785 Words4 Pages
In the article titled “Biological and Physiological Reasons for Social Media Addiction” written by Suren Ramasubbu, “41% of cell phone owners say they would describe themselves as “addicted” to their phone”. Ramasubbu highlights the biological and psychological reasons for social media overuse quite frequently, stating that while using social media it triggers three networks in the brain,”the mentalizing network, the self referential cognition network and the reward network”. Ramasubbu argues excessive social media use is difficult to detect and classify as an addiction because it is not fully harmful. He states the withdrawal symptoms are not biological as in substance abuse and addiction. Ramasubbu notes that when the brain is not engaged…show more content…
Social media can create a false sense of reality because a lot of things on social media are not what they seem. Many teens want to obtain these false realities which creates disappointment in themselves. From the article, there is evidence to prove why people become so easily addicted to social media. Social media engages the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and using this part of the brain creates a natural inclination to social media compulsiveness. I believe excessive use of social media is more dangerous for young adults because the part of the brain that does the decision making is still growing and developing. Since our brains are placid they can be misused and can grow in unhealthy ways, this includes the excessive use of social media. I agree with the article that social media can cause loss of creativity because it is easy to copy someone else’s photos or style. Teens don’t have to be creative when they can look up anything they want. The problem with social media that was not mentioned in the article was the companies producing the social media. These companies want you to be addicted to their sites, so they make more money. The companies do research to make you addicted, this furthers the excessive use of social media. Social media and the College of Emotional Engineering, in the novel Brave New World, are similar in several ways. The College of Emotional Engineering is in the same building as the Bureaux of propaganda with a focus on emotional suggestibility. The college is where they write slogans, feely scenarios and hypnopaedic rhymes. Although, this kind of propaganda is written for the mass public, today’s emotional engineering happens on a smaller scale with more intimacy. However, social media is contagious and gives more freedom to the individual's choices. But, there is propaganda involved in social media with the big
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