This Is How Social Media Destroys Your Brain

Hello Health Champions. What would happen if you  skipped social media for 30 days? A lot of people  

think that social media is mostly about wasting  time but while it does use up a lot of time  

there's a whole lot more to it that we're going  to talk about. In North America they use a little  

bit more than two hours a day on social media  south America is almost three and a half hours  

Africa is over three hours Europe's an  hour 15 and Asia is a little over two hours  

on average in the world we spend two hours 25  minutes per day on social media which is about  

one hour more than eight years ago in recent years  they've found that the more social media people  

use the more they have problems with stress they  have anxiety depression suicidal thoughts they  

have loss of self-esteem because a lot of social  media is all about validating yourself through  

comparison and posting the right  pictures and getting thumbs up and likes  

and even though people are going on  to feel valued and pursue friends  

they end up actually feeling more lonely and more  isolated and maybe the biggest problem that we're  

going to talk about is a loss of focus the driving  force on social media is the magic of maybe  

so it's kind of like a slot machine which is one  of those gambling devices called one armed bandit  

and it is the probability of a win that  you don't get it every time and it's not  

a regular interval it's intermittent and  sort of unexpected and then when you get it  

when you look that maybe there is a new text maybe  there is a new like maybe there is a new heart  

maybe there is something interesting or  fun then once we hit that positive note  

there's a 400 percent rise in dopamine which  is our pleasure our habit-forming pleasure  

neurotransmitter and that 400 percent rise isn't  quite the same as cocaine but it's pretty close  

but whatever we might think about the internet and  phones and social media they started out with good  

intentions it was about communication information  and making it all more convenient but then as it  

grew they figured out that there was money to be  made and now they started competing for your time  

they started developing algorithms to make you  spend more time on their platform because if they  

could get you to spend more time they could sell  more ads and they could increase their profits and  

now these companies developed and hired attention  engineers and these were people who specialized in  

developing maximum addiction on purpose so they  studied addiction they studied neurology they  

studied endocrinology they studied the gambling  behaviors and they try to incorporate as many  

of those factors of those addictive factors as  possible on purpose to get people to spend more  

time and actually get addicted to these social  platforms so what we have to understand though is  

that there's still something good underneath all  this it's not all bad but you can use the internet  

and use the social media as a tool or if you  don't pay attention if you're not careful then  

you become the tool a big foundation in my  channel is talking about how the world is changing  

faster than our physiology so we have to start  understanding how that world is affecting our  

physiology and our bodies the world has changed  more in the last 50 years than it has in the  

previous 50 000 we have foods we never ate before  we have processed foods we have sugar we have  

depleted food we have GMO's we have pollution and  pesticides that the body never encountered before  

we have a level of stress and a pace and a hectic  life we never had before and technology is kind  

of a double-edged sword it helps us in many ways  become more productive and become very convenient  

but at the same time it sort of adds to the  burden as well because there's more to keep up of  

and we have to adapt to this high pace and what  we have to keep in mind with these fast changes is  

your DNA can't keep up your DNA your genome your  genetic material changes at the rate of tens of  

thousands of years to make significant changes so  what's happened in the last 50 years your body has  

no chance to keep up with that the other thing  we have to keep in mind that whatever your  

experience is whatever food produces hormones  whatever pollution does to you whatever stress  

and technology does to you it is your brain that  processes all of it so there's a big discussion  

going on about social media and how people are  feeling different and they're kind of looking just  

at human behavior in the short term but the bigger  question that we have to ask is if we understand  

that the brain processes all of this and social  media changes our health and our behavior then  

how is social media creating those brain changes  when they talk about addiction they usually make a  

differentiation between behavioral addictions and  substance addictions so everything on the table  

here would be substance addictions like alcohol  and cigarettes and morphine and so forth but  

behavioral that's more like sexual addiction and  gambling and now social media it's a behavioral  

change however what we have to realize is that in  the brain the changes are very similar behavior  

or the substance they act very much the same way  in the long run and what they have found is that  

it produces a degeneration in certain areas in  the brain and those are the ones responsible  

for attention and focus when you have your  attention you have your focus on certain things  

it's because you have the ability to filter other  things and we'll come back and talk about that  

and these centers these brain areas also are  controlling emotion and decision making so  

we'll come back to this and a lot of this is about  the frontal lobe the executive center of the brain  

and why is it so critical why do we want to go  that extra step and talk about mechanisms because  

this addictive behavior these are things that we  know we should change another thing that people  

try to change is their weight and their  eating behavior everyone says that should eat  

less well how is that working because if all  you try to do is eat less you will ultimately  

fail and that's what we're seeing over and over  because first we have to understand that different  

foods produce different hormonal responses and  these hormones determine behavior and over time  

this behavior and this food will create disease  but if we don't understand the mechanism and  

we know the consequence then we're not going to  get motivated enough to make changes but once we  

understand now we can change the foods make other  hormones and now we have some power the exact same  

thing is going on with social media it's just that  we're consuming video we're consuming bits of data  

instead of food so if you're addicted but you  say oh I'm going to try to spend less time  

that is probably not going to be very effective  because social media are creating these  

brain changes that lead to addiction that lead  to these mental and physical health problems  

but because of these brain changes just like  with the hormones you are not in complete control  

you have to step back and get some motivation  and some distance to this so you understand  

the consequences and the mechanism and then  you have a chance to do something about it  

now to really understand how these social media  devices how these electronic devices affect the  

brain we have to understand a little bit more  about the brain and the purpose of the brain  

how the brain works how the brain gets programmed  so the purpose of the brain is to interact with  

our environment and to do that we have to be  adaptable and we have to be flexible humans  

can exist in the largest number of environments of  any species we are so incredibly adaptive because  

we have the most flexible the most complex  brain of any living thing and most of that  

interaction with our environment also relates to  movement and with movement of course we can move  

about in our environment and create habitats and  find food now awareness is the ability to perceive  

things to interpret to respond to your environment  and interact with it to be aware of it first  

and this is a unicellular this is a single  cell and it does have some awareness it does  

have some ability to interpret and process and  interact with its environment but it's very very  

limited because its sensory apparatus is very  primitive and it has a very small surface area  

now if we just multiply that a few times we get a  multi-cellular life form it's still very primitive  

but assuming that these cells can communicate that  they have the ability to interact with each other  

and also to cooperate to move toward a common  goal toward a higher purpose now this life  

form with four cells can start to express a more  complex a slightly more complex behavior than the  

single cell and in doing that it has expanded its  awareness it can do more stuff and that of course  

leads us to the human brain which is arguably  the most complex structure in the known universe  

and the brain is housed inside the skull and  the extension of the brain is the spinal cord  

and together they form the central nervous  system and that contains about a hundred billion  

neurons in your body total you have about  40 trillion cells and they all communicate  

indirectly but the brain and central  nervous system is what ties together  

all that communication without that communication  you would just be a bunch of cells but with that  

coordinating action you are a community that  can work toward a common goal and each of  

these hundred billion neurons they just don't link  together in a loop they make an incredibly complex  

network they each make about five to ten thousand  connections or synapses on average and there's  

some cells in the small brain in the cerebellum  that make about 200 000 connections per cell and  

all of these connections add up to your neural  networks now if we can increase and maintain  

that complexity all those connections if we can  maintain that inter-connectedness that strong  

connection then we're also going to increase the  metabolic threshold the ability of these cells  

to perform work and that's going to create  stability and robustness and what does that do  

it is the very properties the strength that lets  you be resilient and withstand stress and anxiety  

and trauma and so forth so then of course the  question is how do we improve and maintain all  

of these five factors to build ourselves a strong  brain and the answer is we want to create multiple  

inputs for the brain so if you're out like this  guy hiking then there is a principle called  

Hebb's law that says that cells that fire together  wire together so this guy is involved in something  

called spatial summation and what that means  is he's getting input from many many different  

directions and that provides some context for what  he's doing he has gravity as muscle tone he has  

movement he has temperature he has hearing  and all of these different inputs provide  

a context that gets wired together in a very  complex network so we have the visual input the  

movement gravity stretch sound it all gets wired  in and now we get this very complex wiring that  

gets strengthened the more we use it into this  robust and resilient brain and the more of these  

cells and the more of these connections we have we  also have an increased and expanded awareness and  

increased ability to take in the environment and  process that information and the opposite of that  

would be spatial subtraction now that's not a real  thing spatial summation is a real neurological  

term but i made this one up to illustrate the  difference between that complex hiking behavior  

and what happens when you're sitting down with  an electronic device so things like games and  

cell phones and social media and basically all  electronic devices with a very narrow focus  

does this so what happens now is you have a  very fast changing very interesting very intense  

visual input so you're activating certain areas in  your brain related to visual input but there's no  

change in the environment the environment doesn't  match what's going on with the visual input so you  

don't get that complex wiring instead you  get a very incomplete wiring of the brain  

and as a result the more limited your wiring the  more you focus on one aspect without getting that  

matching input the more you get a shrinking  perception and consciousness you are less  

able to experience life because you're  conditioning and programming your brain to  

function primarily on electronic devices so I grew  up with Mario brothers and Nintendo and I quickly  

became pretty addicted I love those games but I  stopped because after I had sat down for a few  

hours and I got that tunnel vision and I stood  up and I was all dazed and confused I got scared  

I realized that this is very very dangerous to  the brain this was long before I had any training  

in in this specific brain stuff but I understood  that this can't be good and if something is that  

addictive and it makes me feel that way and I  have the tendency to become that addicted then  

I just can't do that at all but now you might  ask what about 20 minutes would that be okay  

if you do this 20 minutes once in a while and  here's the thing to understand that it's all about  

balance that which do you do more of if you move  more in a three-dimensional world and getting that  

complex input and you're getting five or ten times  more of that then you do the limited electronic  

device input then the complex input is going to  override the narrow input but the way we're doing  

it today with most people and the addictive  nature we are getting way way more electronic  

time than we are time out in the real world now we  have an absolute epidemic of poor attention span  

and when we have poor attention span short  attention span then the people are trying to  

get our attention have to go to new lengths so  they know how to increase the stimuli that's why  

movies and tv and advertising looks so  different than it did 20 30 40 years ago  

now you have to create sounds you have to  change the angles you have to zoom in and out  

you have to edit things with two second clips you  have to keep things moving because if something  

stays the same for five seconds people have lost  their attention already but then when they keep  

stimulating you more when they're using all their  tricks then your attention span gets even worse  

because they can't get your attention it's like  you get worse and worse and worse they have to get  

more and more inventive they have to come  up with stronger stimuli so this becomes  

a vicious cycle that the better they become at  getting your attention the worse your attention  

gets and then eventually you can't create  attention on your own if your life depended on  

it and i think this is a bigger problem than most  people realize that we no longer have the ability  

to sit still we get restless we get nervous we get  bored we feel really bad if we just have to sit  

for even a minute if there's peace and quiet if  there's none of these stimuli interrupting us  

we get anxious we don't know what to do we don't  know how to create focus and we lose that ability  

to focus and we even lose the ability to think  whenever we're left to our own thoughts we look  

for something to interrupt it we don't know how  to maintain a stream of thought of constructive  

thought and evolve that thought we're just looking  for something to stimulate us to interrupt that  

quiet moment and one way this shows up in my  world of course is there's so many people who want  

short videos they want quick sound bites they just  want the bullet list tell me what it is i don't  

want to understand it just tell me what to do but  that doesn't leave them any wiser that doesn't  

leave them any better off because they get the  list and then they compare it to another list that  

says something else and now they're more confused  than ever another thing that they do is of course  

they watch it on higher speed they speed it up  to one and a half times or two times the speed  

because they feel that if they can just listen  and catch the words then they've watched the video  

here's the problem though it doesn't make an  impact on your brain it doesn't create a complex  

network it doesn't integrate in your nervous  system unless you can process and think about  

the information and you can do that while you're  watching but of course you can't do that if you  

speed it up to 2x but if it is a good paste  and you can keep up and sort of process that  

information while you're watching then it has a  lasting impact because you have integrated it into  

your nervous system it's the same way that's  the difference between watching a quick video  

or reading a book reading a book forces you to  use your brain in a different way to engage more  

areas of your brain you have to follow the lines  in a very precise manner you have to visualize you  

have to create images in your brain it's much  much more activating to read a book than just  

watch a movie or something like that when they  were talking about brain areas that degenerated  

and resulted in less focus less ability to  regulate emotions and make good decisions  

they were talking about the frontal lobe because  the frontal lobe is also known as the executive  

center it's the center for executive function  everything that makes us human and the way  

humans are different from other species is about  frontal lobe and this helps us set better goals  

make better decisions it helps us plan and  sustain focus and how does it do that it does  

it by turning off things that are not important  ninety percent of what the frontal lobe does  

is to turn things off it turns off distraction  it turns off stress it turns off anxiety and  

that's why people with a strong brain with a  high metabolic threshold with endurance that's  

why they tolerate distractions and stress and  anxiety much better it rarely affects them and  

social media does the exact opposite of everything  we talked about social media fragments attention  

it's designed to keep you unfocused so that you'll  click on the next thing they flash on your screen  

and if you do that long enough it has the ability  to permanently damage the ability to focus  

so if you got to age 25 before you ever saw a cell  phone you're much better off because your brain  

was hopefully built to a certain strength at that  point but what if you get cell phones at this age  

as a two three four year old then you may never  even develop that healthy brain with the good  

integration and the complex networks alcohol  tobacco cocaine addictive substances they are  

restricted because we understand the consequences  but social media may be just as destructive in a  

slightly different way especially if we keep it  up because people understand to stay away from  

alcohol tobacco and addictive substances so they  might use them once in a while or not at all  

but we don't understand that about social  media and electronic devices yet so we use  

electronic devices as pacifiers as babysitters we  use them as digital companions instead of friends  

for the first time in history we have artificial  digital companions and of course if the average  

is two and a half hours per day there are  some that hardly use it at all and others  

that spend most of their day on these devices and  again most of the discussion is about how is this  

affecting the quality of life short term how is  it affecting how people feel but i really want to  

emphasize we want to take it to the next level and  we want to ask what is this doing if we have an  

incomplete brain if we're either breaking down the  brain or if we're not building it properly in the  

first place what is that going to do 30 40 years  down the road and i really really hope I'm wrong  

but I think what we're seeing isn't even the tip  of the iceberg now if you quit social media and  

electronic devices for 30 days what will happen  you probably see improved mood improved attention  

you might even see improved thinking skills if you  spend some time with yourself and you force your  

brain to do things that it hasn't done in a while  like thinking you'll probably see some improved  

productivity as a result of improved focus and  attention and better thinking skills and you might  

even see some improved self-esteem depending on  how you've been using the social media in the past  

and you might appreciate your life more your  quality of life when you find you have extra  

time for things that really matter there's been a  lot of research and there's been books written on  

this topic and as a result thousands of people  have taken the challenge of putting away their  

phones and their social media and they noticed a  dramatic improvement in the quality of life about  

half of them have noticed dramatic improvements  so does that mean i think you should quit social  

media that they're a bad thing that cell phones  are bad no i don't think that at all i think it's  

a fantastic tool but you have to understand you  have to learn to use it as a tool or you become  

the tool you become someone else's tool so if  you decide to quit for a period that's fine  

but if you don't I want you to be aware and  mindful really be honest and examine step  

back and before you pick it up don't just  mindlessly start clicking things examine  

what's your purpose why am I doing this is  this really adding value to me in any way  

and I have a bunch of different social media  accounts I've never used them I use YouTube to get  

information and to provide information I have  the other accounts I've hardly ever been on them  

but it's great to get information on YouTube and  if you use it for that then it builds you up it's  

very productive it can also be for professional  contacts there's some platforms that can help you  

further your career if you use it for that and  nothing else I also use it for business texting  

it's very efficient if I'm not in the office  and they have questions we can quickly exchange  

information I love to travel with my cell phone it  gets me directions it tells me where the traffic  

jams are it saves me time if I'm traveling I have  flight reservations hotel reservations car rental  

reservations it's all in one place it's very  convenient right and you can also use it for  

many many different things like every time I go to  the bathroom I have five minutes I do a language  

lesson so right now I'm learning Spanish German  and French and there's lots and lots of things  

that your phone can do as long as you don't let  yourself mindlessly fall into that endless pit  

of social media. If you enjoyed this video,  you'll love that one. And if you truly want  

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