Smartphone addiction creates chemical imbalances in brain in teens

[Justplain]

CTVNews.ca Staff
Published Thursday, November 30, 2017

New research finds that young people who become addicted to smartphones and the internet actually develop chemistry imbalances in their brains. Researchers from Korea University in Seoul, South Korea, conducted a small study on 10 teen girls and 9 boys who had all been diagnosed with internet or smartphone addiction. Their average age was 15.5 years old.

The researchers used standardized addiction tests to measure the severity of the teens’ addiction to their phones, including asking them the extent to which their smartphone use affected their daily life, their social life, productivity, sleeping patterns and mood. All the addicted teenagers had significantly higher scores in depression, anxiety, insomnia and impulsivity. The researchers then used magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) -- a type of MRI that measures the brain's chemical composition – to better understand the brains of the addicted teens, by comparing their scans with 19 gender- and age-matched healthy controls.

They looked at the anterior cingulate area of the brain, which has been shown to play a large role in addiction. They looked specifically at levels of gamma aminobutyric acid, or GABA, a neurotransmitter that plays a role in the regulation of vision and motor control, as well as anxiety. They also looked at levels of glutamate-glutamine (Glx), a neurotransmitter that causes neurons to become more electrically excited. They found the ratio of GABA to Glx was significantly increased in the smartphone- and internet-addicted youth compared to the healthy controls. High GABA levels have been linked to many side effects, including drowsiness and anxiety. The study’s lead researcher, Dr. Hyung Suk Seo, professor of neuroradiology, believes that increased GABA in the brains of the internet and smartphone addiction may be related to their loss of regulation in the parts of their brains that control cognition and emotion.
Twelve of the 19 addicted youth went on to receive nine weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy to deal with their addiction. Further MRS scans showed that GABA to Glx ratios in those addicted youth significantly decreased or normalized after therapy. The study was presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/health...rain-1.3700931

[Flash]

It creates imbalances in my old brain, I can just imagine the damage in young flexible brains.

Those studies are real and quite frightening in fact. Can you imagine what will happen with transhumanism?

[petra]

It IS frightening. I had a good laugh at the Futurama episode about the IPhone.. it goes in your EYE! It's terrible, his head was ringing

We depend so much on technology even without it IN us, and one good EMP could take it all down, in theory. Can you imagine what would happen with a worldwide outage? I think I'd be more concerned about the transhumanism though. Kind of makes me shudder. I definitely do not want to be hooked into a computer, no thanks

[BMJ]

Link: https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...=1#post1180623

The genius of the smart phone is portrayed in one of my favourite images, a person being impregnated with technology resulting in the birth of a Borg.

[Bill Ryan]

A new study by King's College London on smartphone addiction in young people, published 29 November, 2019:

• https://kcl.ac.uk/news/an-estimated-...artphone-usage

An estimated 1 in 4 children and young people have problematic smartphone usage

A study by researchers at King’s College London has estimated that one in four children and young people use their smartphones in a way that is consistent with a behavioural addiction. The research was published today in BMC Psychiatry.

By analysing literature that has been published since 2011 when smartphones first became widespread, the range of studies showed that 10-30% of children and young people used their smartphones in a dysfunctional way, which means an average of 23% were showing problematic smartphone usage (PSU).

PSU was defined as any behaviour linked to smartphones that has the features of an addiction, such as feeling panicky or upset when the phone is unavailable, finding it difficult to control the amount of time spent on the phone and using the phone to the detriment of other enjoyable activities.

The study is the first to investigate the prevalence of PSU in children and young people at this scale, summarising findings from 41 studies that have researched a total of 41,871 teenagers and young people. The 41 studies included 30 from Asia, nine from Europe and two America. 55% of the participants were female, and young women in the 17 to 19-year-old age group were most likely to have PSU.

The researchers also investigated the links of this type of smartphone usage and mental health and found a consistent association between PSU and poor measures of mental health in terms of depressed mood, anxiety, stress, poor sleep quality and educational attainment.

Behavioural addictions can have serious consequences on mental health and day-to-day functioning, so there is a need for further investigation into problematic smartphone usage in the UK. In order to determine whether PSU should be classified as a behavioural addiction we need longitudinal data looking at PSU in relation to more objective health outcomes, as well as evidence that people with PSU struggle to moderate their use– First author Samantha Sohn from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s

There is currently a lot of public discourse around the possible negative effects of smartphone use, and previous research has tended to only examine the quantity and frequency of time spent on any technology or screen. Our review assesses the effects not just of heavy use, but of dysfunctional smartphone use, and by looking at an 'addicted' pattern of behaviour towards smartphones we have established correlations between this type of dysfunctional behaviour and poorer mental health outcomes– Co-senior author Dr Ben Carter from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s

Over the past decade there has been an increase in smartphone use among children and young people and this has occurred at the same time as a rise in common mental disorders in the same age group. To help clarify the possible association between smartphone use and mental health in children and young people the researchers investigated patterns of smartphone-related behaviour, rather than smartphone use per se.

Smartphones are here to stay and there is a need to understand the prevalence of problematic smartphone usage. We don't know whether it is the smartphone itself that can be addictive or the apps that people use. Nevertheless, there is a need for public awareness around smartphone use in children and young people, and parents should be aware of how much time their children spend on their phones– Co-senior author Dr Nicola Kalk from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s

‘Prevalence of problematic smartphone usage and associated mental health outcomes amongst children and young people: a systematic review, meta-analysis and GRADE of the evidence’ by Sohn et al, BMC Psychiatry, 10.1186/s12888-019-2350-x

[frankstien]