Harvard Study Links The Use Of Social Media to the Brain's Sensations of Pleasure

Smartphones, laptops and tablets now provide billions of people around the globe with access to personal material platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and has thus created a new environment of expression and information. The success of these platforms is based within the networks of people that are created and the ease at which personal information can be shared. It is innovative, convenient and arguably addictive. Whether or not social media and technology are useful as it is distracting is a debate that even University of Maryland's diamondback engages in. It is not uncommon for students and even staff to be utilizing Facebook or Twitter on their laptops and smartphones in academic settings. This revelation has led many to wonder if social media is more of an uncontrollable addiction than a source of convenient information.

A recent study by Harvard has revealed scientific data that shows social media platforms such as Facebook are linked to the brain's sensations of pleasure. The link provides insight as to why checking your phone or laptop for Facebook updates in class is so highly addictive. Social media allows users to spread personal knowledge to a network of users. According to Harvard researchers, this diffusion of personal knowledge and information to others leads to a rewarding experience. The experiments held revealed that areas of the brain associated with reward were heightened when users provided self-disclosure, and were less engaged when talking about someone else. This may explain our need to tweet about what we're having for lunch, or share a picture of who we are with and how we are currently feeling. As lead researcher Diana Tamir explains "[the study] helps explain why Twitter exists and why Facebook is so popular, because people enjoy sharing information".

As a user of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, it is hard to refute the positive high that retweets, status likes and positive Facebook comments provide for me. It gives a sense of companionship in the sense that people know what you are doing or thinking, and positively agree with you. The ease with which one can attain such positive feelings from Facebook and Twitter may reveal why I feel the need to check my phone and update my status or tweet, because it's convenient. This convenience has unfortunately led me to become distracted in class, especially when I feel that sharing a picture of someone sleeping on their desk has higher priority than the professor's lecture slides.

Governing technology can be difficult however and maintaining focus is hard when social media is convenient. The positive effects of disclosing personal information to your network of friends and family is hard to counter with powerpoint slides. Simply waiting can lead to a quick check of notifications and I have personally found it hard to control myself at times of impatience. Although social media itself is distracting, technology can still be governed to provide utility in an educational and innovative sense. Further reading of these institutions utilizing technology to provide educational mediums and media are successful and there are many more examples in universities and the work place. Although Harvard's study reveals an inevitable high from social media, it is up to us to curb our social media enthusiasm in order to utilize technology at its full potential.