Published: Sept. 8, 2018
The mind games behind social media
Chemical released in brain similar to
satisfaction with drugs, alcohol, gambling
By Nicholas Dettmann
ndettmann@conleynet.com 262-306-5043
WEST BEND — Your phone does a ding.
A text message was received.
Then there are a few more dings.
Your Facebook, Twitter or Instagram post just
got some likes from friends and maybe some additional likes or retweets from
followers you may not even know or met face-to-face. Feels good doesn’t it?
It’s supposed to.
A chemical called dopamine is released in the
brain when that happens. It also happens when humans drink, smoke, gamble or
have a tasty burger.
Psychiatric experts say because of the human’s
lust for that rush, especially for those ages 12-17 when it correlates to their
social media use, that may be the start of dangerous and addictive behavior
that could have significant impacts on their brain development going into
adulthood.
A 2011 survey by Columbia University,
“National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse XVI,” said 70 percent
of those ages 12-17 reported spending time on social media at least once per
day, which equals about 17 million teens. In the study, it revealed teens that
spend time on social network sites in a typical day compared to ones that don’t
are five times likelier to use tobacco, three times likelier to use alcohol and
twice as likely to use marijuana. Studies are also showing there is a great
resentment to those findings, which
is highly concerning to health professionals.
In that Columbia study, 87 percent of parents said they believe spending time
on social networking sites doesn’t make it more likely their children will
drink alcohol; 89 percent said a similar statement, but related to drug use.
Part of that resentment may be attributed to
the lack of hard data and that smartphone and social media use is a widely
accepted part of the day-to-day life. However, health professionals argue,
while research is ongoing to assess social media use and its possible
connection to drug and alcohol abuse, teens and parents and all social media
users shouldn’t ignore the findings.
“There hasn’t been a landmark study that tells
the definitive,” said Himanshu Agrawal, a child psychiatrist at Froedtert and
the Medical College of Wisconsin. “There’s many theories and there’s many
concerns about correlation not causation.”
Agrawal said one study he read said the number
of hours a teen spends on social media is equal to that teen’s depression — the
more time spent on social media equals more depression.
“By definition, adolescence ... it’s your
role, it’s your responsibility, your duty to define who you are socially,”
Agrawal said. “The most common way that any adolescent does it is by comparing
themselves to their peers.”
Often with social media, users are posting the
best moments of their lives, a front-row seat at a concert, a vacation, a
party, etc. Thus it gives a false illusion or a misinterpretation that
everything is great in one person’s life. If one is 14 years old and sees
friends posting online a great time at party — invited or not — the teen
quickly develops, according to health professionals, increased feelings of
inadequacy, anxiety and depression.
Teens need to take a step back and realize
something important.
“You get a really biased view of what everyone
else is doing and not just teens, everyone’s busy putting out profiles on
social media that are not based on reality in terms of what their lives are
actually like,” said W. Hobart Davies, professor and chair of psychology at the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “They’re exaggerating the range of
activities they’re into or how wonderful their lives are going.
“If you’re relying on that as a basis to
evaluate what other people are doing, you’re going to get a biased perception
of the world.”
Other development shortfalls with excessive
social media use, according to health experts, include a lack of interpersonal
communication skills, such as reading body language and facial expressions.
“It’s a time of great psychological growth,”
Agrawal said of people ages 12-17. “It makes the average adolescent brain
susceptible to peer pressure and influence.
“The one thing that social media has done is
you’re no longer just a kid on your block or in the sandlot. Your peers are now
hundreds of thousands of people that you have access to and to compare their
lives to. So when they see their peers binge drinking or using drugs, then it
not only glamorizes it, but normalizes
it.”
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What to do?
Agrawal said research still needs to be done to
see if the addictive behaviors of teens are related to their social media use.
But steps are being made in the right direction to get that question and more
answered.
Until it is, still, Agrawal said, serious
attention should be paid to one’s behavior and use of social media.
“If it’s true that social media is increasing
risks for addictions, then that’s scary,” Agrawal said. “We know for a fact
that access to social media is so much more prevalent than access to drugs and
alcohol. There are far many more checks and balances when it comes to drugs and
alcohol and cigarettes than there are for social media.”
He added, “Damage is being done.”
“When we are spending more and more time on
social media, it’s taking the place of the interpersonal, face-to-face
interaction with others,” said Jennifer Hagel, outpatient psychotherapist at
Aurora Behavioral Health in West Bend. “Messaging someone across a social media
site is starting to take the place of our ability to speak to people.”
According to Davies, The American Academy of
Pediatrics came out with a set of guidelines when assessing children’s use of
social media and smartphones. The most controversial was the parents’
involvement and monitoring the kids’ activity, especially at an age when
children are learning to be independent.
“It’s very challenging for sure,” Davies said.
“You need to try normalizing the involvement much earlier, much younger than
(ages 12-17), but also be aware that kids are motivated to set up different
social media accounts, one of which is for parents consumption and one is where
parents are kept in the dark about.”
Davies suggested cellphones not be in bedrooms
at night and that they’re located in a neutral spot in a home, such as the
kitchen. There is also a recommendation that cellphones be put away at least
one hour before bedtime. Hagel agreed, adding a limit of two hours per day is
fair.
“Getting those restrictions in place before the
child is 16 or 17 gives you a much more of a fighting chance,” Davies said.
“It’s hard to reel them in after they’ve had that freedom.”
Parents also need to be mindful of their own
social media and smartphone use.
“We’re seeing that consistently when we talk to
youth — is it too much? Should there be limits? — We get a lot of pushback
about, ‘Hey, my mom is on her phone all the time,’” Davies said. “That’s going
to have to be an important part of all these sort of limit settings and trying
to come up with rational limitations. Youths are very aware of any double standards.”
Davies said more studies and resources are in
the works to get a better handle on long-term effects of excessive social media
use among adolescents.
“There’s a lot of layers to this onion,” Davies
said.
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