Social Media and Drug Addiction

This week we began work on the brain.  We started specifically on addiction.  We watched a video, created by East Middle School, about opioid addiction. I was surprised at how quickly people can become addicted, and how hard it is for them to ask for help. It definitely made me rethink what I knew about drugs.  Before, I thought that addiction takes a while to take hold, but I was very wrong.  It also reminded me that anyone, including friends and family, can become addicted.

We also began our projects on different drugs and other sources of addiction.  I chose social media.   Social media has many addictive properties, giving you rewards with likes and views, which release dopamine, making you feel good about yourself.  The purpose of the internet companies is to keep you on the screen.  They continuously expand, finding new ways to capture your attention.

I find social media a very interesting topic, especially in this generation. We are the first to have the internet involved in school, traveling, shopping and more, and the first to have smartphones at our disposal as teenagers.  Especially in the time of COVID, when we aren’t able to see friends and family, we need to pay more attention to the amount of time spent on media. As I continue my research  these extremely important and relevant topics, which can affect our brain, body, and future, I hope to discover ways to regulate the absurdly smart AIs that continuously manipulate us, to reduce the risk of addiction in my generation.

Questions: How can we control social media addiction?  Is there a way to stop internet companies from discovering personal information?  Should kids in elementary or even middle school have phones?

 

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