By Shawn Smith
“People will come to…adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think,” author Neil Postman wrote, interpreting author Aldous Huxley vision in Brave New World.
Huxley’s words, long before smartphones or even the Internet, are almost prophetic for our day, as we can get lost in hours and hours of endless scrolling on our devices. But is it really harming our “capacity to think”?
According to psychologist Gloria Mark, it is.
“When we’re overwhelmed with processing so much information, our cognitive resources drain. When they drain, our mind gets fatigued,” she told CNBC Make It.
With the 16,000 TikTok videos uploaded daily and 138.9 million Reels viewed on Instagram, there is plenty to get overwhelmed by.
“There’s a part of the mind that’s called executive function, and that has the job of keeping us on track,” Mark went on to explain. “It helps us with decision making, filtering out distractions and sticking to goals. When the mind gets fatigued, executive function just can’t do its job.”
Much of the short-form content viewed on social media is “designed to shock us or to appeal to very basic emotions, like surprise or anger or [humor],” Mark said.
It also may decrease our ability to focus.
Mark’s research on cognitive function in relation to screen time reveal a decrease in attention span since 2004 when she first started her study. She found that in 2004 the average attention was two and a half minutes but lowered to an average of 47 seconds by 2016.
“When you get into this habit of consuming short-form and shallow content, it’s really hard to pull out and take a deep dive into consuming books or long-form articles,” Mark stated.
She said that the there is a solution to break the habit of endless mind-numbing scrolling, although it can be a challenging habit to break.
She suggests reading more long-form, thought-provoking material, whether they’re articles or books. The caveat is to not read them on your phone to avoid distractions like TikTok or Instagram.
Related: Is Social Media Really Causing the Youth Mental Health Crisis?
Our attention spans may not be the only thing that social media consumption is affecting. There is a growing concern that anxiety and depression among kids is linked to social media use, so much so that former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a warning about social media use last year.
“We see rates of depression and anxiety and suicide and loneliness going up among young people, and I’m concerned that social media is an important driver of that youth mental health crisis,” Murthy said. “This is the defining public health issue of our time.”
Many others are seeing the need for a social media detox. TV personality Valerie Bertinelli, HGTV stars Ben and Erin Napier and Christian influencer Sadie Robertson Huff, just to name a few, all took breaks from social media for mental health reasons or to focus more on their families.
“Taking a little social media cleanse/detox and a mental health break is a good thing and I’m grateful I’m at a place in my life where I’m aware enough to know when I’m overwhelmed and mentally/ emotionally exhausted,” Bertinelli posted before her social media hiatus last year.
A recent study done by Jeffrey Lambert, senior lecturer at the University of Bath, had participants refrain from social media for a week. While the long-term effects are still unknown, the study revealed an overall positive effect on their mental health, especially lowering anxiety and depression.
“For a lot of people, just taking that one-week break gave them an opportunity to reflect on how much they were using social media, and their reasons for using it,” Lambert said. “Were they using it mindlessly, just scrolling? Or were they using it for a positive purpose, to connect meaningfully with friends or family.”
While it’s hard to pull ourselves away from social media, it might just be the reset our brains need.
Read Next: Sadie Robertson Huff Takes Social Media Break to Focus on Family: ‘So Thankful’
- Content: +3Share:
- Content: +2