For many years scientists have shown how internet use has had huge effects on our brain, including the increase of activity in particular areas of the brain while surfing the internet. Given that Facebook has more than 800 million active users around the world and more than 50 percent of those active users log in every day, it is easy to suggest that the use of Facebook specifically should also have an impact on the brain. In particular, do differences in brain anatomy exist between individuals depending on their Facebook use?
This question was analyzed by Ryota Kanai and other scientists at the University College London this year and they have linked the use of Facebook to changes in areas of the brain relating to social interactions.
Kanai studied the brains of 125 university students all of which actively used the social media site Facebook. Through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Kanai found that the size of four different brain regions increased as the number of Facebook “friends” increased. The results from the imaging showed a greater amount of grey matter in the amygdala, the right superior temporal sulcus, the left medial temporal gyrus and the right entorhinal cortex in individuals with more Facebook friends. These areas are known to be involved in memory, emotion and social interactions. It makes sense that experiences with Facebook would correspond to these areas because memory would be required for relationships developed and emotions tied to each individual would exist as well.
Although the correlation between the size of these particular areas and social network size is significant, information about the causation is still a ‘grey area’ in this research (pun intended). For example, one cannot tell whether some people are naturally more social due to the architecture of their brain and therefore have more Facebook friends or whether increased brain density is caused by having more Facebook friends.
From lecture we know that learning a new skill will undoubtedly cause a rewiring within the brain. This rewiring could be a change in the density of neural wiring or perhaps creating completely new connections and neural pathways. If we consider the repetitive use of Facebook as an individual’s major form of social interaction, then one might believe the brain would rewire itself in certain areas as more Facebook friends are added. This doesn’t mean that adding Facebook friends will automatically change the brain structures, but if someone consistently uses Facebook instead of real human interaction for their social needs a change in anatomy may correspond. I, however, believe that this is a little far-fetched and prefer the idea that some people might be naturally pre-disposed to more social behavior. Their larger social networks in real life would then carry over to online social media sites.
The article can be found at http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/19/uk-science-facebook-idUSLNE79I02020111019
The actual findings of the study can be found at http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/10/12/rspb.2011.1959.full
This is interesting, especially since Facebook is always an opened tab on my browser. However, my question is, would there be a difference in these areas of the brain compared to those with an increasing network of Facebook friends vs. Friends who keep in touch daily? I'm asking this because although I have 800+ Facebook friends, I only keep in touch with 3 or 4 friends daily and maybe even 15-20 weekly.
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I think this is way farfetched, but I'm biased because I strongly oppose the use of facebook. However, it'd be nice to see them run a study for 10 years or so, getting scans of teenagers perhaps and following them through their transition into adulthood while simultaneously monitoring their facebook friend count and obtaining MRI's of their brain every 2-3 years. It's tough to see how a mere number could cause an increase if brain activity, and mass. Also, don't you think there's an extreme amount of variability with this study not just because some people are more predisposed to being social animals, but because it doesn't seem like they accounted for the differences in facebook use, rather they only looked at friend count?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if I agree with this because people who tend to have more Facebook friends tend to also tend to be more social in other respects. Also, some people see the number of friends as a status symbol. Someone with a low count of friends may be more socially active with their fewer friends then those with countless friends. The number of friends on Facebook means different things to different people, and I think that the area is to vague to draw data from. I think that social networking systems do indeed change some networking of our brain... but the correlations drawn here do not have valid support in my opinion.
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