How does social media addiction lead to attention deficiency?
Are you a social media addict? Are you losing your attention span? If so, then read this article to understand how social media addiction hijacks your brain.
Have you ever thought about watching a movie or a TV series but felt it was an arduous task? Instead, you succumb to the temptation of scrolling through an endless loop of Instagram reels or TikTok videos. You feel sorry for yourself and frustrated for not being able to complete watching a movie you’ve had in your wishlist for a long time. You blame yourself for your deteriorating attention span. Still, you also blame social media, so you temporarily deactivate your accounts in hopes of gaining back your time and routine. But instead of focusing that time on productive work you feel a sensation of missing out on the reels your friends used to send you and all the latest trends and updates around the world, so you reactivate your accounts, only to repeat this sad loop over and over again. If you can relate to this then you might be addicted to social media. asd
What is ADHD?
You might have heard from your doctors or teachers that unchecked and extensive social media use can cause impairment in your ability to focus and intensify pre-existing ADHD disorder. So, it might be wise first to figure out what ADHD is and how social media can exacerbate this disorder.
ADHD, or Attention Deficiency Hyperactivity Disorder, is a medical term that is used to define a behavioral condition that makes focusing on daily social tasks and requests challenging. ADHD causes severe difficulties in staying on a specific task for a long time, and it is characterized by a persistent mode of inattention, hyperactivity, impulsive behavior, inability to create and stick to a rational plan, and not thinking before acting.
The toxic relationship between ADHD and social media addiction
In recent years, social media use has been rising around the world, reaching over 2 billion users worldwide. Despite the immense benefits social media provides by connecting people from around the world, increasing use of social media sites and apps remains highly addictive. Internet addiction, or Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD), is a more technical term that is widely recognized as a biologically based medical issue. As such, we must clear up what we mean by being highly addicted to social media. This addiction is characterized by pathological use of social media apps, persistent consumption of social media content for a long duration, having a constant urge to “check up” on your friends’ status and what they are doing right now, and relying on social media apps as a last resort to mitigate the feeling of boredom and loneliness. The last point is the most common and disconcerting characteristic trait of a social media addict. However, all of these points contribute to the pathological behavioral problem of a social media addict and can be stated as ‘problematic use of social media’. Research has suggested that there is a high correlation between cases of ADHD among young people and unchecked use of the Internet and social media, in turn, suggests that interactivity and reflexive reactivity associated with the consumption of social media has the potential to cultivate ADHD like symptoms among its users.
A two-way relationship hypothesis can be formulated. Firstly, people with ADHD, because of their existing predisposition towards hyperactivity and inability to focus, are more susceptible to becoming social media addicts. Conversely, people who suffer from problematic use of social media have higher chances of developing ADHD symptoms. Secondly, individuals with depression and anxiety tend to have ADHD-like symptoms, while it has also been proven that having ADHD makes them more likely to develop depression and anxiety from a young age. To summarise, these psychological disorders provide a fertile ground for social media addiction, and the opposite can also be said, as it has been widely proven that overconsumption of social media and its derivative addiction is directly linked to psychological and behavioral changes in the form of depression, low self-esteem, and anxiety.
This makes people who are suffering from it seek out short-term pleasures like using social media.
Does social media addiction cause ADHD?
I have been cautious enough in this article not directly to associate ADHD with social media addiction, as such I have always used the phrase ‘ADHD-like symptoms’, or ‘ADHD symptoms’. This is intentional, because contrary to the common belief that acute social media activity leads to ADHD or exacerbates ADHD, there is no scientific evidence to support this claim.
At first observation, it can be noted that the symptoms typically associated with ADHD are mostly found in people who have developed pathological social media use. Neurologically, people with ADHD have difficulties in linking their actions with their goals and have a natural propensity towards attaining a goal in the easiest and ‘lazy’ way possible, this makes it a problem to control their impulses. Similarly, problematic social media use has also contributed to a similar behavioral development, where people have problems controlling their impulses, and favor short-term pleasures (dopamine release) for long-term meaningful goals. Common sense would see this similar pattern of behavior as a clear correlation that social media addiction causes ADHD, or conversely, people on the spectrum of ADHD can have their symptoms get worse by using social media. In any scenario, social media eventually becomes the scapegoat of all the problematic behavioral patterns. Now, this is not to say that social media is completely without blame, but as we all know, correlation does not equal causation, so we must tread carefully in assessing this seemingly obvious association.
Has there been a rise in ADHD cases due to pathological social media use? Why?
In recent media reports, we have seen a trending pattern that shows a direct association between social media use and ADHD cases. In fact, it has been clearly reported that more parents are coming to the clinic or seeing a child psychologist out of fear that their kid has developed ADHD because they have been spending too much time on social media. These fears are fueled by mostly commonsensical beliefs and erroneous reports readily available on social media and even on mainstream media outlets.
Overdiagnosing is also to blame for the sudden rise in ADHD cases. As previously stated parents have become more concerned about their kids’ behavior, so it is not that ADHD cases have steeply risen in the last few years but the symptoms related to ADHD that were previously ignored are now picked up by concerned parents. Therefore, the sudden rise in ADHD cases does not reflect the actual rise in cases but simply a diagnostic correction along with an increasing awareness of this problem.
How long-term exposure to social media reduces attention span
Now that we’ve dispelled all the rumors about social media addiction causing ADHD, you might feel relieved. However, as I have been cautious from the beginning to not equate social media addiction and ADHD, I have also been careful not to absolve social media linkage with ADHD-like symptoms, as there is clear evidence to suggest otherwise. So let’s delve deeper into how social media reduces our attention span.
I suppose everyone has experienced a moment when they’re doing something important work or even as simple as watching a movie when they’re caught off guard by a social media notification on their mobile, and no sooner you find yourself scrolling mindlessly on social media. It might make you feel frustrated and angry at yourself for not having a modicum amount of concentration ability to finish watching a movie or do a productive task. But, you’d be surprised to know that this situation is not completely in your control.
Social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are cleverly designed to keep you on the platform as long as possible. From the specific color choices of the app to the UI design, everything works to buy your attention and hook you to the app. Research has suggested that the bright red color is more noticeable than the softer and more calmer tones of blue and green. Not surprisingly, all the notification bubbles that you see on your apps are red for that very reason, to sway your focus. Not only that but the word phrasing of your phone notifications from social media apps is designed to make you feel wanted and that you are missing out on something.
The onset of short-form content (any content under 10 minutes or 1200 words) has made the situation worse for us. Since our brains are designed to make us feel happy and comfortable, social media has tapped into that nature to seduce us. Mindless scrolling on apps is designed similarly to a Scroll of Infinity game on casinos, where you get a chance to get a reward every time you scroll. This adoption in social media apps tricks our brains into thinking that every time we scroll we are bound to get some reward, thus releasing small doses of dopamine. Think of it like a monkey pulling a lever and getting a small amount of sweet food, now every time the monkey pulls that lever he will be expecting the same reward, do that often and he has become an addict. To surmise, the release of small doses of ‘feel-good’ chemicals at regular intervals triggered by a specific activity is how you get addicted, and endless scrolling on social media has the same effect on you.
Similarly, pathological consumption of short-form content tricks the primal part of the brain to release dopamine and give you instant satisfaction. It acts the same way as scrolling, in the sense that this short-form content bombards you with more information than you can handle, thus keeping your brain hooked and fatigued enough not to perform any other tasks. Afterward, when you move on to read a book with long, complex sentences or watch a full movie, you feel distracted or longing for short-form content. This is because your brain thinks why to perform such a long and arduous task to get satisfaction later when you can get instant gratification by simply watching a 30-second reel or YouTube shorts.
The hijacking of our brain chemistry by social media
It is evident that social media companies know your brain physiology and psychology enough to keep you on their platform. The use of seemingly simple tactics in a clever way has managed to hijack our brain chemistry and make us feel a loss of control.
Exposing ourselves to short-form social media content and endless scrolling for a long duration will alter our brain functioning by changing how our brain perceives any task. Social media apps are designed to trigger the amygdala and the limbic region of the brain (the part that regulates your emotions) to take control of how you feel happiness and satisfaction. The systematic release of dopamine at specific intervals can make you feel addicted to almost anything.
Think of it like a learning process, when you try to learn a new skill, you have to practice repeatedly to learn it. This process of repeated action creates neural pathways or new connections of neurons in our brain that enable us to adopt that new skill. Getting addicted to social media works similarly but without much effort, since addiction in its essential form is the pathological familiarity of comfort and satisfaction, it is much easier. Long-term exposure to social media content quite literally changes your brain chemistry by limiting or suppressing the rational urge of your prefrontal cortex (the part that controls rational thinking and intellect) by drowning your brain in all sorts of ‘feel-good’ chemicals. Your primal and emotional instincts take over the logical and rational parts of your brain. This leads to some dangerous consequences because a sudden release of dopamine or serotonin is followed by abnormally low levels of dopamine which causes a rush of negative emotions like sadness, grief, or regret. A lot of us get this negative feeling after spending too much time on social media when we then regret our actions or are filled with frustration, anger, and sadness because we stalled something productive or important.
How you can take back control of your brain?
Just as we saw the seemingly simple mechanics of how we get addicted to social media and get ADHD-like symptoms, the cure to these problems is also simple and obvious. Yet to do so is difficult.
Aggressively limit your social media usage – This might seem simple and most obvious and yet many fail to do so. But if you’re severely addicted to social media and it is harming your lifestyle and mental health then the best thing you should do is to just quit social media altogether without giving it a second thought. Similar to detoxing, this sudden escape from social media usage will eventually make you feel more relaxed and focused.
Fill your day with physical activities – Only quitting social media will be counter-productive since you are bound to get bored and will eventually resort to using them. So to distract you from that you have to make yourself busy or occupied with productive and screen-free activities. This can be a simple task of a house chore, grocery shopping, or more healthy activities of workouts.
Surround yourself with friends – Social media is intended to connect your friends in one place all the time and it hasn’t gone well so far. So, the best thing you can do to escape the digital world is to physically meet your friends or loved ones and spend much of your leisurely time with them. This has benefits that go beyond just curing social media addiction, as studies have shown that going out with your loved ones cures your brain and elevates your mood without making you addicted. Moreover, meeting your friends or simply going out can help you with communication skills and managing your overall interaction abilities.
Conclusion
Social media addiction and its subsequent evils of attention deficiency is not a problem you should ignore, and to know of the mechanics and processes of how you get addicted can help you mitigate the dangerous shackles of addiction. The moment you realize the subtle tricks used against you, then you can get a more potent ability to control your emotions and routine.
Have you ever thought about watching a movie or a TV series but felt it was an arduous task? Instead, you succumb to the temptation of scrolling through an endless loop of Instagram reels or TikTok videos. You feel sorry for yourself and frustrated for not being able to complete watching a movie you’ve had in your wishlist for a long time. You blame yourself for your deteriorating attention span. Still, you also blame social media, so you temporarily deactivate your accounts in hopes of gaining back your time and routine. But instead of focusing that time on productive work you feel a sensation of missing out on the reels your friends used to send you and all the latest trends and updates around the world, so you reactivate your accounts, only to repeat this sad loop over and over again. If you can relate to this then you might be addicted to social media. asd
What is ADHD?
You might have heard from your doctors or teachers that unchecked and extensive social media use can cause impairment in your ability to focus and intensify pre-existing ADHD disorder. So, it might be wise first to figure out what ADHD is and how social media can exacerbate this disorder.
ADHD, or Attention Deficiency Hyperactivity Disorder, is a medical term that is used to define a behavioral condition that makes focusing on daily social tasks and requests challenging. ADHD causes severe difficulties in staying on a specific task for a long time, and it is characterized by a persistent mode of inattention, hyperactivity, impulsive behavior, inability to create and stick to a rational plan, and not thinking before acting.
The toxic relationship between ADHD and social media addiction
In recent years, social media use has been rising around the world, reaching over 2 billion users worldwide. Despite the immense benefits social media provides by connecting people from around the world, increasing use of social media sites and apps remains highly addictive. Internet addiction, or Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD), is a more technical term that is widely recognized as a biologically based medical issue. As such, we must clear up what we mean by being highly addicted to social media. This addiction is characterized by pathological use of social media apps, persistent consumption of social media content for a long duration, having a constant urge to “check up” on your friends’ status and what they are doing right now, and relying on social media apps as a last resort to mitigate the feeling of boredom and loneliness. The last point is the most common and disconcerting characteristic trait of a social media addict. However, all of these points contribute to the pathological behavioral problem of a social media addict and can be stated as ‘problematic use of social media’. Research has suggested that there is a high correlation between cases of ADHD among young people and unchecked use of the Internet and social media, in turn, suggests that interactivity and reflexive reactivity associated with the consumption of social media has the potential to cultivate ADHD like symptoms among its users.
A two-way relationship hypothesis can be formulated. Firstly, people with ADHD, because of their existing predisposition towards hyperactivity and inability to focus, are more susceptible to becoming social media addicts. Conversely, people who suffer from problematic use of social media have higher chances of developing ADHD symptoms. Secondly, individuals with depression and anxiety tend to have ADHD-like symptoms, while it has also been proven that having ADHD makes them more likely to develop depression and anxiety from a young age. To summarise, these psychological disorders provide a fertile ground for social media addiction, and the opposite can also be said, as it has been widely proven that overconsumption of social media and its derivative addiction is directly linked to psychological and behavioral changes in the form of depression, low self-esteem, and anxiety.
This makes people who are suffering from it seek out short-term pleasures like using social media.
Does social media addiction cause ADHD?
I have been cautious enough in this article not directly to associate ADHD with social media addiction, as such I have always used the phrase ‘ADHD-like symptoms’, or ‘ADHD symptoms’. This is intentional, because contrary to the common belief that acute social media activity leads to ADHD or exacerbates ADHD, there is no scientific evidence to support this claim.
At first observation, it can be noted that the symptoms typically associated with ADHD are mostly found in people who have developed pathological social media use. Neurologically, people with ADHD have difficulties in linking their actions with their goals and have a natural propensity towards attaining a goal in the easiest and ‘lazy’ way possible, this makes it a problem to control their impulses. Similarly, problematic social media use has also contributed to a similar behavioral development, where people have problems controlling their impulses, and favor short-term pleasures (dopamine release) for long-term meaningful goals. Common sense would see this similar pattern of behavior as a clear correlation that social media addiction causes ADHD, or conversely, people on the spectrum of ADHD can have their symptoms get worse by using social media. In any scenario, social media eventually becomes the scapegoat of all the problematic behavioral patterns. Now, this is not to say that social media is completely without blame, but as we all know, correlation does not equal causation, so we must tread carefully in assessing this seemingly obvious association.
Has there been a rise in ADHD cases due to pathological social media use? Why?
In recent media reports, we have seen a trending pattern that shows a direct association between social media use and ADHD cases. In fact, it has been clearly reported that more parents are coming to the clinic or seeing a child psychologist out of fear that their kid has developed ADHD because they have been spending too much time on social media. These fears are fueled by mostly commonsensical beliefs and erroneous reports readily available on social media and even on mainstream media outlets.
Overdiagnosing is also to blame for the sudden rise in ADHD cases. As previously stated parents have become more concerned about their kids’ behavior, so it is not that ADHD cases have steeply risen in the last few years but the symptoms related to ADHD that were previously ignored are now picked up by concerned parents. Therefore, the sudden rise in ADHD cases does not reflect the actual rise in cases but simply a diagnostic correction along with an increasing awareness of this problem.
How long-term exposure to social media reduces attention span
Now that we’ve dispelled all the rumors about social media addiction causing ADHD, you might feel relieved. However, as I have been cautious from the beginning to not equate social media addiction and ADHD, I have also been careful not to absolve social media linkage with ADHD-like symptoms, as there is clear evidence to suggest otherwise. So let’s delve deeper into how social media reduces our attention span.
I suppose everyone has experienced a moment when they’re doing something important work or even as simple as watching a movie when they’re caught off guard by a social media notification on their mobile, and no sooner you find yourself scrolling mindlessly on social media. It might make you feel frustrated and angry at yourself for not having a modicum amount of concentration ability to finish watching a movie or do a productive task. But, you’d be surprised to know that this situation is not completely in your control.
Social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are cleverly designed to keep you on the platform as long as possible. From the specific color choices of the app to the UI design, everything works to buy your attention and hook you to the app. Research has suggested that the bright red color is more noticeable than the softer and more calmer tones of blue and green. Not surprisingly, all the notification bubbles that you see on your apps are red for that very reason, to sway your focus. Not only that but the word phrasing of your phone notifications from social media apps is designed to make you feel wanted and that you are missing out on something.
The onset of short-form content (any content under 10 minutes or 1200 words) has made the situation worse for us. Since our brains are designed to make us feel happy and comfortable, social media has tapped into that nature to seduce us. Mindless scrolling on apps is designed similarly to a Scroll of Infinity game on casinos, where you get a chance to get a reward every time you scroll. This adoption in social media apps tricks our brains into thinking that every time we scroll we are bound to get some reward, thus releasing small doses of dopamine. Think of it like a monkey pulling a lever and getting a small amount of sweet food, now every time the monkey pulls that lever he will be expecting the same reward, do that often and he has become an addict. To surmise, the release of small doses of ‘feel-good’ chemicals at regular intervals triggered by a specific activity is how you get addicted, and endless scrolling on social media has the same effect on you.
Similarly, pathological consumption of short-form content tricks the primal part of the brain to release dopamine and give you instant satisfaction. It acts the same way as scrolling, in the sense that this short-form content bombards you with more information than you can handle, thus keeping your brain hooked and fatigued enough not to perform any other tasks. Afterward, when you move on to read a book with long, complex sentences or watch a full movie, you feel distracted or longing for short-form content. This is because your brain thinks why to perform such a long and arduous task to get satisfaction later when you can get instant gratification by simply watching a 30-second reel or YouTube shorts.
The hijacking of our brain chemistry by social media
It is evident that social media companies know your brain physiology and psychology enough to keep you on their platform. The use of seemingly simple tactics in a clever way has managed to hijack our brain chemistry and make us feel a loss of control.
Exposing ourselves to short-form social media content and endless scrolling for a long duration will alter our brain functioning by changing how our brain perceives any task. Social media apps are designed to trigger the amygdala and the limbic region of the brain (the part that regulates your emotions) to take control of how you feel happiness and satisfaction. The systematic release of dopamine at specific intervals can make you feel addicted to almost anything.
Think of it like a learning process, when you try to learn a new skill, you have to practice repeatedly to learn it. This process of repeated action creates neural pathways or new connections of neurons in our brain that enable us to adopt that new skill. Getting addicted to social media works similarly but without much effort, since addiction in its essential form is the pathological familiarity of comfort and satisfaction, it is much easier. Long-term exposure to social media content quite literally changes your brain chemistry by limiting or suppressing the rational urge of your prefrontal cortex (the part that controls rational thinking and intellect) by drowning your brain in all sorts of ‘feel-good’ chemicals. Your primal and emotional instincts take over the logical and rational parts of your brain. This leads to some dangerous consequences because a sudden release of dopamine or serotonin is followed by abnormally low levels of dopamine which causes a rush of negative emotions like sadness, grief, or regret. A lot of us get this negative feeling after spending too much time on social media when we then regret our actions or are filled with frustration, anger, and sadness because we stalled something productive or important.
How you can take back control of your brain?
Just as we saw the seemingly simple mechanics of how we get addicted to social media and get ADHD-like symptoms, the cure to these problems is also simple and obvious. Yet to do so is difficult.
Aggressively limit your social media usage – This might seem simple and most obvious and yet many fail to do so. But if you’re severely addicted to social media and it is harming your lifestyle and mental health then the best thing you should do is to just quit social media altogether without giving it a second thought. Similar to detoxing, this sudden escape from social media usage will eventually make you feel more relaxed and focused.
Fill your day with physical activities – Only quitting social media will be counter-productive since you are bound to get bored and will eventually resort to using them. So to distract you from that you have to make yourself busy or occupied with productive and screen-free activities. This can be a simple task of a house chore, grocery shopping, or more healthy activities of workouts.
Surround yourself with friends – Social media is intended to connect your friends in one place all the time and it hasn’t gone well so far. So, the best thing you can do to escape the digital world is to physically meet your friends or loved ones and spend much of your leisurely time with them. This has benefits that go beyond just curing social media addiction, as studies have shown that going out with your loved ones cures your brain and elevates your mood without making you addicted. Moreover, meeting your friends or simply going out can help you with communication skills and managing your overall interaction abilities.
Conclusion
Social media addiction and its subsequent evils of attention deficiency is not a problem you should ignore, and to know of the mechanics and processes of how you get addicted can help you mitigate the dangerous shackles of addiction. The moment you realize the subtle tricks used against you, then you can get a more potent ability to control your emotions and routine.
