{"id":440,"date":"2018-01-22T20:48:26","date_gmt":"2018-01-23T03:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2017w211\/?p=440"},"modified":"2018-02-06T21:04:16","modified_gmt":"2018-02-07T04:04:16","slug":"our-modern-silent-pandemic-edited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2017w211\/2018\/01\/22\/our-modern-silent-pandemic-edited\/","title":{"rendered":"REVISED: Our Modern Silent Pandemic: Social Media Effects and Prevalence"},"content":{"rendered":"

For millenials, the driving force behind entertainment and productivity is social media.\u00a0 Canadians’ growing usage of mobile phones<\/a>\u00a0is reaching wider audiences, but as with all good things, is too much dangerous?<\/p>\n

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Source: Shutterstock Image Library<\/p><\/div>\n

Habits are what define us.\u00a0 As smartphones become more convenient and available to us, so does the itch to check every few minutes.\u00a0 But why are we so inclined to see a screen, even solely as an impulse?\u00a0 Harvard scientists answered the discussion with a groundbreaking discovery<\/a>: “individuals place high subjective value on opportunities to communicate their thoughts and feelings to others and that doing so engages neural and cognitive mechanisms associated with reward”.\u00a0 Though we are social beings, the proof of our intrinsic feelings of reward when showcasing ourselves means our lives are dependent on approval, whether we want it or not.\u00a0 Social media amplifies the reward while conveniently placing public metrics to invoke a deeper dependence.\u00a0 The article implies that as social media becomes more integrated with our lives, our dependence could potentially be on the level of necessities, such as food or shelter, to sustain our lives.\u00a0 As news of the study came out, social media usage transformed from an activity to a concern.<\/p>\n

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Source: American Marketing Association<\/p><\/div>\n

Research spawned from social media like wildfire into the neuroscience community, with experts piecing together the science behind the effects.\u00a0 Brain imaging directly relates viewing photos on Facebook with activity across the amygdala<\/a> and striatum<\/a>, which hold control over our emotions and impulses.\u00a0 These sections are most active when our nerves receive\u00a0rewards in the form of\u00a0dopamine<\/a>, which codes for happiness.\u00a0\u00a0Although there is nothing wrong with feeling happy, continuously feeling this way will polarize how you may normally act, whether with greater motivation or less<\/a>.\u00a0 Just think of dopamine as a drug; in natural amounts, dopamine allows us to be more active and positive, but when taking too much, we can become so overloaded with emotion that we may become too euphoric or too depressed.<\/p>\n

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Source: Huffington Post India<\/p><\/div>\n

Alongside neurological changes, behavioural changes are just as prevalent.\u00a0 When we are locked into needing the attention of others, we are locked into a cycle of wanting to feel happy and feeding our emotions.\u00a0 With each successive post or comment, meeting the dopamine needs becomes more challenging.\u00a0 In between intervals, the lack of engagement can\u00a0lead to depression and loneliness.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Source: Statista Analytics Portal<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Social media is here and it is spreading.\u00a0 Statista puts the pandemic in perspective<\/a>.\u00a0 The number of social media users worldwide from 2010 to 2021 will grow from 0.97 billion to 3.02 billion within a decade.\u00a0 If you can just imagine what one billion means<\/a>, multiply that by three.\u00a0 The spread, the growth, and the scale means you can guarantee the world is affected in a major way.<\/p>\n

As prevalent a problem as social media addiction is in our world, there is no recognized treatment.\u00a0 Research in the past year has spiked to address the issue, including formally defining the problem as a start.<\/a>\u00a0 There are more questions than answers, but for now, all we can really do is hold tight and keep our real friends close.<\/p>\n

– Aaron Yen<\/p>\n

One longer inspirational seminar about this topic can be found below.\u00a0 Simon Sinek approaches the societal problem of social media in much greater detail, and addresses everyone with “the millenial question”.<\/p>\n

[youtube]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YPmNf362_K0[\/youtube]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For millenials, the driving force behind entertainment and productivity is social media.\u00a0 Canadians’ growing usage of mobile phones\u00a0is reaching wider audiences, but as with all good things, is too much dangerous? Habits are what define us.\u00a0 As smartphones become more … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57094,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132756,222578,132763,431983,3151391,1],"tags":[6768,470,2807],"class_list":["post-440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biological-sciences","category-issues-in-science","category-public-engagement","category-science-communicators","category-science-in-news","category-uncategorized","tag-neuroscience","tag-psychology","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2017w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2017w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2017w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2017w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2017w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2017w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":706,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2017w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions\/706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2017w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2017w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/communicatingscience2017w211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}