Posted by Akasci 1 hour ago
Interpreting fMRI results like this article does is almost always wrong. Different activities produce different patterns of brain activity. You could put someone in an fMRI machine, have them do virtually any activity, and then write a headline saying that doing that activity turns of key brain regions that are important for something. The trick is that all brain regions are important for something. Having them be less active during a task doesn't imply that it's good or bad. It just shows you which parts of the brain are involved in that task.
This blogspam article isn't great. The study at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381192... has more details, like the fact that those brain regions come online while viewing other less-preferred videos. The results aren't really indicative of anything by themself. It would have been more interesting if they compared to something, like watching a long involved movie or playing video games, but they didn't.
Also this post is coming from a fresh account that only spams links to this blog. Maybe the mods will want to switch the link to the actual study instead: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381192...
This could equally be reported as tiktok puts the mind at ease.
Or tiktok reduces brain activity related to anxiety.
"Related to" is a term that seems to be capable of supporting an unlimited load.
While this podcast episode is not about this particular research, it could have been.
https://www.changetechnically.fyi/2396236/episodes/17378968-...
It is possible that inhibiting certain brain areas for a longer period will change e.g. cognitive skills. There is enough literature on losing skills after inactivity. But this approach can't bridge the gap.
It makes more sense to observer TikTok users' behavior over time. That can give more information about the actual effects, although without nice, colorful blobs.
BTW its Social Media as per studies
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12329480/
Whole bunch of research,
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/?term=Social+Media
But, my point is its normal Every generation behave differently. We shouldn't judge it even via these studies.
I wonder if this mechanism is the same mechanism that impacts, say, swipe-focused dating websites, as well? And Twitter feeds with super-short messages. A lot of the most viral modern tech has been bite-sized content feeds of various types.
> "Matt Mayberry, who works at a California startup called Dopamine Labs, says it's common knowledge in the industry that Instagram exploits this craving by strategically withholding "likes" from certain users. If the photo-sharing app decides you need to use the service more often, it'll show only a fraction of the likes you've received on a given post at first, hoping you'll be disappointed with your haul and check back again in a minute or two."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28763413 also speaks to this.
(Dopamine Labs is now boundless.ai, only one example, the reward hacking mentioned is everywhere in socials, adult content, sports betting, for reward maxxing)
There were investigations into it after that the conclusions was that nobody believed it or could replicate it: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/01/does-instagram-withh...
Either the person was making something up, or he just didn't understand how hyperscale apps work toward eventual consistency rather than having everything propagated the instant you press the button.
US states accuse Meta of covering up research on teen social media addiction in pivotal trial - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/18/meta-chil... - August 18th, 2026
> Lawyers representing 29 US states have accused Meta of covering up internal research showing Instagram was addictive for teenagers. In a packed courtroom Tuesday, on the opening day of a landmark legal challenge, they said the company knew its products harmed children but hid that information from the public.
> The attorneys general disagree, saying Meta “developed and refined a set of psychologically manipulative” features designed to maximize people’s time on its apps. Those include an infinite scrolling recommendation algorithm, constant notification alerts, thumbs-up “likes” and visual filters for altering one’s image.
> “AGs are in the perfect position to get this done,” he added. “We did it with the tobacco settlement in the 1990s. We did it with the companies behind the opioid crisis. We’ll do it again with Meta.”
Meta and YouTube designed addictive products that harmed young people, jury finds - https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/mar/25/jury-verdict-u... - March 25th, 2026
Sharpe BT, Spooner RA. Dopamine-scrolling: a modern public health challenge requiring urgent attention. Perspect Public Health. 2025 Jul;145(4):190-191. https://doi.org/10.1177/17579139251331914 Epub 2025 Apr 12. PMID: 40219910; PMCID: PMC12322333.
> This manuscript examines the emerging phenomenon of dopamine-scrolling and its implications for public health, particularly regarding mental wellbeing and digital behaviour patterns. While extensive research exists on Internet addiction, problematic social media use, and doom-scrolling, the authors of this paper identify dopamine-scrolling as a distinct behavioural pattern that warrants specific attention from public health professionals and policymakers.
De D, El Jamal M, Aydemir E, Khera A. Social Media Algorithms and Teen Addiction: Neurophysiological Impact and Ethical Considerations. Cureus. 2025 Jan 8;17(1):e77145. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.77145 PMID: 39925596; PMCID: PMC11804976.
> Does it matter how many hours we spend scrolling through Instagram? This article examines the neurobiological impact of prolonged social media use, focusing on how it affects the brain's reward, attention, and emotional regulation systems. Frequent engagement with social media platforms alters dopamine pathways, a critical component in reward processing, fostering dependency analogous to substance addiction. Furthermore, changes in brain activity within the prefrontal cortex and amygdala suggest increased emotional sensitivity and compromised decision-making abilities. The role of artificial intelligence (AI) in this process is significant. AI-driven social media algorithms are designed solely to capture our attention for profit without prioritizing ethical concerns, personalizing content, and enhancing user engagement by continuously tailoring feeds to individual preferences. These adaptive algorithms are designed to maximize screen time, thereby deepening the activation of the brain's reward centers. This cycle of optimized content and heightened engagement accelerates the development of addictive behaviors. The interplay between altered brain physiology and AI-driven content optimization creates a feedback loop that promotes social media addiction among teenagers. This raises significant ethical concerns regarding privacy and the promotion of personalized content. This review article offers a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the neurophysiological impact of social media on adolescents and the moral concerns governing them. It also provides solutions for ethical social media use and preventing addiction among teenagers.
Addictive potential of social media, explained - https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2021/10/addictive-pot... - October 29th, 2021
What Makes TikTok so Addictive?: An Analysis of the Mechanisms Underlying the World’s Latest Social Media Craze - https://sites.brown.edu/publichealthjournal/2021/12/13/tikto... - December 13th, 2021
(I have provided subject matter expertise on this topic to federal policymakers, with peer reviewed citations in all cases, I hope I have helped improve your priors to bring them current)
Hysteria typically doesn’t lead to particularly good policy
It really makes sense now. Emotional dysregulation comes into play and now I wonder that it's not just me who is quietly angry (at Match Group) all the time while still addicted to swipe based dating apps.
Coincides with GenZ aging into adulthood after being educated in the debunked "3-cueing" or "whole language" reading education model. So far 40 states have pivoted away from it as states that switched first saw reading comprehension improve.
Whole lot of social experimentation without informed consent being put on people by 50+ year olds who run the world and never had to jump through the same thought policing.
Psychiatrist argues Americans have lost their grit for irrational reality we are forced to live in and actually are snowflakes: https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/02/how-we-...
Broad sustained exposure being the known mechanism to activate and deactivate "key cognitive brain regions".
Perhaps you should activate more regions via exposure to that which so easily excites your brain due to lack of exposure. Snark won't trigger you so easily then.
:)
> I'm fine not having the same attention span as people who had to less stuff to do hundreds of years ago.
Maybe, if we're really generous, there's a reasonable version of this argument that you've failed to adequately communicate here... But it really seems like you're trying to say that a short attention span is a good sign of progress, or something?
I know HN and SV in general has a culty addiction to contrarianism, and it rarely elicits more than an eye roll from me. Framing a short attention span as anything other than a bad thing is wild to me, and I honestly don't know how to respond to something like that (or if my sarcasm detector is off). Do we need scientific studies to show that goldfish brain == bad?
The quantity is endless. You can run out of channels, sweep through them a few times, give up, and get bored, while doom scrollers give you an infinite stream of faux-novelty. It's entirely possible to scroll for eternity and never run out of what at least seems, to your limbic system, like information and social stimulation.
The content is generally much lower quality than TV. Even really bad dumb TV is high art compared to a lot of what's on the doom scrollers. It's hyper-optimized for narrow addictiveness and literally nothing else.
There's a closed feedback loop optimization system in place. The site knows you're scrolling. It knows how fast, where you pause, in some cases even where your eyeballs are going. It knows what makes you interact. It knows what you watched before you stopped watching vs what you watched and kept watching. It also has tons of third party data on you and sensor data that often even includes your location. It can optimize its addiction mechanism in a personalized rapid feedback closed loop way that television could never achieve.
It's like a smart drug that tries to keep you hooked. Imagine if the heroin had a learning algorithm that adapted its chemical structure in real time to keep you from quitting and it was powered by fleet-wide learning cross all heroin molecules in the world.
Write this headline about Mastodon and no one would read it.
I found it surprising how little depth the video had
I have deleted my Tiktok account 5 times. No longer a user.
I would like to take this opportunity to state one of my core beliefs: we are all easily programmed meat machines. Accepting this fact is uncomfortable, but important.
We’re living down to it.