Digital casino in the kids room... How are likes and notifications literally rewriting teenagers' brains?

Almost every popular social networking app is built on the same behavioural mechanism: unpredictable reward. Sometimes you open the app and nothing happens at all. Other times, 47 new "likes" and comments await you. It's this uncertainty that drives our attention - the same psychology that makes it so hard to walk away from slot machines.

But what does this mechanism do to a brain that is still developing? That's the focus of a three-year longitudinal study mapping the brains of teenage children.

Scanning the developing brain

Researchers followed a group of children from the age of 12 to 13. They divided them into two groups: those who check social media (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat) habitually (at least once a day) and those who use them less frequently.

Each year, the researchers scanned the brains of these children in situations where they expected social feedback from their peers. In doing so, they measured activity in areas of the brain that control emotion processing, motivation and cognitive control.

Result: different development trajectories

The data showed a clear trend. Children who checked their networks every day showed different brain development in areas related to social reward and attention.

• Increased sensitivity: Over the course of three years, regular network users showed a steady increase in neural sensitivity in areas of social reward. Their brains became more reactive to social feedback - in simple terms, they were increasingly "hungry" for more signals and alerts.
• The opposite trend: in children who did not check their networks daily, sensitivity gradually decreased.

The researchers are not entirely sure how to interpret this phenomenon. It may be classic conditioning that will encourage compulsive networking in the future. But it could also be a natural adaptation of the brain to an environment that is simply much busier socially than in the past.

What are the implications for parents?

The good news is that the solution does not necessarily have to be draconian bans and disconnection from the internet. The key is to break the loop of constant control.

• Phone-free zones: Establish windows during the day when phones are not available. Ideal candidates are communal meals, morning routines, and a time at least an hour before bed.
• Change of Scenery: If phones are already in the room, adjust the rules - turn off notifications, put phones screen down, and don't keep them in the bedroom at night.
• Delay access: the results of the study suggest that it makes a lot of sense to consider allowing your child to access social media from the age of 14, when the brain is a little more mature.