Social Media and the Brain: Addiction, Reward, and Ethics
Social Media and the Brain: Addiction, Reward, and Ethics In people who are addicted to social media entertainment, hormones like dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins play a vital role. Watching short videos, memes, and reels triggers the release of dopamine, which creates feelings of joy and contentment (Goldman, 2021). Users' brain reward systems are triggered by using social media through the release of dopamine, contributing to addictive behavior (Goldman, 2021). Consequently, we tend to become addicted to social media-based entertainment. As a result, we spend longer periods on social media. Why does our brain become addicted to entertainment rather than focusing on learning? The two independent variables,entertainment and learning, function contradictorily. Entertainment intensely triggers the brain's reward system, releasing the pleasure chemical dopamine. In contrast, learning does not stimulate the brain in the same way that entertainment does. Naturally, people tend...