FREQUENT FACEBOOK USERS HAVE SMALLER BRAINS, STUDY FINDS

Facebook is perhaps the most studied social media platform, given its popularity and addictiveness. Numerous studies have been conducted on Facebook’s role in social reinforcement and its effect on the brain. It has been found that frequent Facebook users show increased activity in the nucleus accumbens, the brain’s reward centre that controls addiction.

A recent study has brought to light another significant change affecting the brains of frequent Facebook users — structural MRIs conducted on 85 people who regularly check their feed on smartphones have shown shrinkages in the brain, with lesser grey matter around the nucleus accumbens. What the study doesn’t prove, however, is if less grey matter was the cause for Facebook addiction or the frequent use of Facebook led to reduced grey matter.