#technology impact

Hey guys finals are eating my ass.

We have five finals in my English class (a research paper, a creative thingy, a argumentative paper, a compiled a vocab assessment, a grammar assessment) and we only had this four day week for the research paper (which has really funky specifics btw, it's pissing me off) and I was MISSING for the two work days we had. When I went to try and work on it I got a migraine bc of a strong cologne near me, my Chromebook died within a hour (it was at 25 percent when I got there bc of the virtual appointment) I almost had a second panic attack, and now my head is still throbbing and I'm going to ✨cry✨ bc I still have to worry about my other finals but my English teacher assigned a million pieces of bullshit, but in either case, I pulled through and FINISHED MY RESEARCH PAPER LETS GO (we were only allowed to write two paragraphs with a weird lot of specifications but it somehow still ended up being three pages long on my Google document so I guess take my research paper now and please compliment me because I tried to talk to my mom about it because I was excited and happy about it but she just wrote me off and did not give a fuck)

RESEARCH PAPER- In what ways can excessive screen time impact development in youth?

Several case studies point to yes, that in fact, there is a multitude of negative repercussions. One study points to the fact that it stimulates the same system of the brain that develops addiction, the ‘Variable reward system’. But firstly, to understand the danger this poses, one must understand the term: it refers to the brain's reward system that can be hijacked by substances or behaviors (Such as dependence on social media) that cause unnaturally high dopamine surges. This overstimulation leads to a cycle of overactivation and desensitization, causing the brain to adapt to these artificial stimuli by reducing its natural dopamine production and receptor sensitivity. As said by one Miss Jeanne Ricci, “A variable-reward system is one in which a person sometimes gets a reward — like that warm feeling — when they do something, but not always, and they don’t know when that good feeling will come next.” (The Growing Case for Social Media Addiction, Jeanne Ricci). This excerpt highlights what has been previously stated about the variable reward system. That which is targeted by companies, particularly social media, in an effort to get more engagement, thus creating the effect of a “high” and a “low”. If we look at the same document from CSU,” 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.” (The Growing Case for Social Media Addiction, Jeanne Ricci). Addiction works through the means of getting your brain dependent, and social media has done just that. With an algorithm that is highly adaptive and engrossing, it causes people, particularly youth, to become hooked and, in the long term, addicted. Particularly by playing into the reward systems your brains naturally have, such as the Variable reward system and systems involving your serotonin and dopamine production. Although people who have a codependency on social media still have the ability to exercise self-control, whereas people who have issues with substances (Alcohol, Methamphetamine, Cocaine, so on and so forth) commonly do not have the same ability to exercise self-control.

In a Modern World, we the people often adapt to the times: using the newest advancements, slang, and predominantly, the newest technology. And with the rise of technology, there comes a rise in concern; are there negative repercussions, especially for its main, and most malleable consumer, the youth of the 21st century?

This poses a danger to people, and as said in an article from BYU, “Research on screen time and its impact on child development has discovered problematic outcomes including decreased emotional regulation, increased attention deficit symptoms, decreased parent-child interaction, and lower social-emotional understanding”. (Childhood Screen Time and Child Development, Angela Webb). Because children's brain are highly susceptible to external input, and due to the rise in social media, there has been a number of side effects caused from excessive social media use in youth. It's severely impacts childhood development and causes long-term deficits and areas where children would commonly be able to operate in a higher aptitude, particularly in emotional realms, which is particularly due to the fact of social media playing on your variable reward system and other serotonin and dopamine systems. On the same note, if we look at a article from the Washington University School of medicine, it also highlight; “After adjusting for covariates, the odds were 1.28 times higher for adolescents who engaged in excessive screen-time behaviors to report serious cognitive difficulties compared to adolescents who did not engage in excessive screen-time behaviors,” (Excessive screen time behaviors and cognitive difficulties among adolescents in the United States) this shows the statistic of people who have developed cognitive and behavioral difficulties due to excessive screen time use. While it is common and possible for people to develop and be born with disorders involving cognitive difficulties and behavioral health issues due to the prevalence of social media and how they play on your neural structures, people who engage more excessively in social media are more likely to report to having issues in areas they might not have if they did not engage so egregiously in social media.

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