What impact does social media have on us?

Social media have become an integral part of our online life. They inform, entertain, allow us to communicate, form opinions. Just what price are we paying for it?

The “Social Media 2023” report, prepared by Gemius, Polish Internet Research and IAB Poland, shows that 93.79 percent of Internet users in Poland (from 7 to 75 years old) use social media. That’s nearly 28 million people.

They spent an average of 2 hours 1 minute and 44 seconds per day, or 42.08 percent of their time online (the survey ran through the entire year 2022). Women spent a bit more than men (2:4:11 to 1:58:40). The younger, the longer (3:17:1 for the 7-14 year old group, that’s 59.74 percent of the time they spent online).

YouTube (26.67 million), Facebook (26.37 million), Instagram (15.88 million) and TikTok (13.4 million) had the most real users in 2022.

The most time-engaging platform was TikTok – on average, its users spent here daily 1 hr. 21 min. 50 sec. Just behind it was YouTube – 1 hour 16 min and 35 sec. The third – Facebook – engaged for an average of 51 min and 29 sec per day.

Why so long? Because it’s engaging. The infinite scrolling method used by many platforms makes us want to go further, deeper, it’s extremely easy for us to lose track of time.

A dose of dopamine

Social media ideally uses the mechanism of dopamine release. This is a neurotransmitter secreted in a part of our brain’s limbic system called the reward system. It activates when we satisfy our needs or experience pleasure.

Dopamine is essential to our lives: it motivates us to act, allows us to feel satisfaction and pleasure. It makes us want more, harder, turns us on. It drives us to repeat rewarding ( with a pleasant feeling) activities.

Isn’t it similar to scrolling Facebook or Instagram? The rewards here are the likes and other expressions of appreciation or liking, attractive content that we have to “fish” in the feed. We scroll wearily, and finally there it is! A video with cute kittens, a funny photo uploaded by friends. Dopamine dump and we go (scroll) on, for another one.

In social media, dopamine rewards are unpredictable – sometimes a few right away, sometimes we have to scroll for a long time. And the greater the uncertainty of the reward, the greater the amount of dopamine released. So we sit in front of screens and scroll.

– Dopamine quickly changes the brain, alters neuronal connections – as a result, the more we supply it to ourselves, not even on a conscious level, we just live in a stimulated world, the greater our need for it. And things get out of control. The system associated with dopamine is overstimulated, we stop being sensitive to it. And then it’s hard to find a level that satisfies us. We need a stronger stimulus all the time. The excess of dopamine that turns us on eventually causes an imbalance with serotonin, which is that neurotransmitter that says: “It’s OK, it’s enough, I feel calm, joy, fulfillment.” When I hug a loved one and feel the pressure go down – that’s serotonin working. And dopamine blocks serotonin, tells us to do more and harder. And if we are in constant overstimulation – it’s not always related to pleasure at all, sometimes to cognitive load – then there is a peak of cortisol on the other side, that is, exhaustion, overload, chronic stress, Dr. Asia Podgórska, neurobiologist, explained this mechanism in the magazine ‘Zwierciadło’.

A disturbed reward mechanism causes the brain to seek more frequent and stronger sensations, and this can lead to addictions.