According to a social media usage statistic in Hong Kong, 6.73 million people in Hong Kong were active on social media, which is highly digitally connected with over eight-in-ten of its residents. People spend about an average of two hours a day on social media, spending more time than TV broadcast or other traditional media platform. Although social media can connect people together at anytime, anywhere and facilitate information spreading globally, addiction is regarded as one of the most commonly-felt disadvantages of social media platforms.
Established under CityU’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS), the Brain research cluster focuses on the study of human brain using neuroscience and advanced information technologies. On 14 December 2023, an online seminar, namely “An Examination of the Neural Basis of Social Media ‘Addiction’”, was held to uncover various neural and psychiatric aspects of social media “addiction”. The speaker of the seminar was Dr Ofir TUREL, a professor of information systems management within the School of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne. His research interests include a broad range of behavioural, biophysiological and managerial issues related to information systems and technologies. Dr Turel has published over 200 journal papers in information systems, business, psychology and psychiatry journals. He has been recognised in the top 2% of researchers worldwide in a study conducted by Stanford University.
In the seminar, Dr Turel shared his observation of some Internet users present signs that have been labelled by researchers as an “addiction” to the use of specific applications on the Internet. Even though these so-called “addictions” seem to be prevalent (e.g., to videogames, Facebook, mobile email), it is not clear what their neural bases, if any, are. Therefore, he conducted this set of studies aiming to adhere to calls made by the research community and the American Psychiatric Association to examine the neural basis and the potential viability of technology-related so-called “addictions”.
Dr Turel presented fi¬ndings from multiple studies conducted over the last decade, attempting to uncover various neural and psychiatric aspects of social media “addiction”. These studies used fMRI, DTI, MRI, and behavioral experiments techniques. Dr Turel explained that, when people see a lot of likes on social media, it triggers the brain’s reward system. This leads social media users to seek out those rewards. “What it means is that social media provides rewarding experiences that generate dopamine in the brain, the same substance produced when we eat cake or have sex. Over time, it trains your brain to want to check social media more and more often,” he concluded.
Dr Turel recommended social media users to make good use of the “Take a Break” function of smartphone or app to set a timer to limit to use of social media platform. Developing new interests and reconnecting in other ways are also good ways to reduce social media use.
