-Are you scrolling? It's probably how
you found this video. How long you watch the video, how many likes, comments,
shares, influences what you see. -Travel pillows? We've been wearing them
the wrong way. -Shut up. -Although what you do
on social media may seem insignificant
to your overall wellbeing, it does matter. -You twist the seasoning bottle,
not shake it. -You twist it! -Well, social media
has essentially taken human connection
and turned it into a drug by distilling it down
to the essential properties that make something addictive. -For others,
social media has been a place where they found
lost family members, organ donors... -So if you have a boat. -...meaningful life events that have happened
around the world. But cellphones and social media
are so deeply connected to every aspect of our lives...
-TikTok taught me. -...our work, family, school that most experts say
we can't easily quit. ♪♪ And to understand why
social media is so addictive, we have to look into
how our brain works. The brain controls thought,
memory, emotion, along with all the five senses and every process
that regulates our body. All those tasks
are performed by pathways where the brain sends messages
to the nervous system, and the nervous system
sends messages back. We'll focus on
the brain's reward system. Here is where dopamine
is mostly produced, a type of neurotransmitter,
also called a feel-good hormone. That is sent to four pathways. One of those is
the mesolimbic dopamine pathway, which is connected to the
amygdala and the hippocampus. The first processes emotion, while the latter is essential
for learning and memory. Too much or too little dopamine
affects how we learn, get motivated,
our mood, attention, our heart rate,
and many other behaviors and physical functions.
And this is where studies show the addictiveness
of social media. -When we engage
with social media, it releases a lot of dopamine
in the brain's reward pathway, lights up the same part of
the brain as drugs and alcohol. It's incredibly accessible. We have 24/7 access
to this particular drug. It's bountiful in the sense that it's, practically
speaking, infinite. TikTok never runs out. And number four,
it's incredibly novel. The AI algorithms learn
what we've liked before and actually push to us
the suggestion that we want to keep going or check out
the next new new thing. -In late May, the surgeon
general put out an advisory about the effects of social
media on youth mental health. He highlighted adolescence
and childhood as a critical stage
in brain development and that young people
are more at risk when they're spending
too much time on social media. -The bottom line is we
don't have enough evidence to say that this is, in fact,
sufficiently safe for our kids. What we have instead
is growing evidence that tells us
that social media use is often associated
with harms to our kids. And my growing concern
is that social media has become
an important contributor to that youth
mental health crisis. -But how do you explain this
to teenagers? 18-year-old Mariana Myers
tried to do just that. She animated a visual essay
named Nomophobia, or "no mobile phobia,"
for her English class in Arizona on what it looks when you're
addicted to social media. -The idea of the video
was kind of a cautionary tale as to saying how technology,
smartphones in particular and social media, can be great. It can be a great tool,
a way to connect, but it can also lead to overuse, and overuse can lead to
a lot of negative consequences. -Myers' video is now
part of a lawsuit in her home school district, which is suing Meta,
Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube for creating what they say is a health crisis
among America's youth. Although similar lawsuits have
been filed across the country, like in California
and Washington, access to social media
is everywhere. Dr. Lembke says
moderation is key. She then recommends
a dopamine fast and to become aware
of the three C's -- control, compulsion,
and consequences. -If we're using
in an out-of-control way, if we're using in an automatic,
compulsive way that we can't stop
even when we want to, and if we're having consequences
as a result of our use, we really have to take
a hard look at that behavior, try to make a change. -Similar to what Miles Crawford
and Charlene deGuzman show in their short documentary,
"I Forgot My Phone."
