The Neuroscience of Social Media: An Unofficial History

In conclusion, we predict that the observed patterns of brain activity will be dependent on the nature of the Twitter material being read. These distinct neural networks are expected to reflect the cognitive, emotional, and visceral processes underlying the rapidly changing content of digital media, which ultimately results in "rewiring" of the brain.Back to the present post...Not too far off, eh?Although the TICS piece mentioned that seven social media neuroscience articles have been published to date1 (none quite like that one), it didn't review them. Bloggers have covered some of these (e.g., The Facebook Brain and More Friends on Facebook Does NOT Equal a Larger Amygdala) and related topics like social media use and personality, Facebook neuromarketing, metaphorical Facebook cells, Twitter psychosis (interview), “internet addiction”, textmania, and the lack of evidence that social network sites “damage social relationships” or cause depression. After discussing the many ways in which social media data can be used as a proxy for real-world behavior, Meshi et al. mentioned some conspicuous differences between online and offline behavior (e.g., online disinhibition as illustrated by trolls, overly disclosive trainwreck LiveJournals, and TMI). This brings us to the “What the Internet is doing to our brains” brigade of unsupported scaremongering:Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users, an eminent scientist has warned.Sit...
Source: The Neurocritic - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Source Type: blogs