The Impact of Social Media on the Behavior of the Youth and the Physiology of the Brain

Michael Lyashenko, Anna Wyszkowski, Albert Jurkowski, Joo Sun Mun

In the contemporary world, nearly everyone across the globe from New York City to France to Seoul is connected through one particular fashion: social media. According to Karim, there were about 3.484 billion social media users worldwide in 2019 and the number continues to grow exponentially. Moreover, with a variety of different outlets of social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, the spread of information occurs at increasingly high rates and news that would otherwise take days or weeks to spread in the 1900s, are now known in a matter of seconds. Furthermore, with a major population of social media users being the younger generation, there are many impacts that social media can have on one’s mental health or behavior as well as with the physiological standpoint of the brain. Therefore, this study was done to tackle the effects of social media on the psychology of the youth as well as how the COVID-19 pandemic comes to play a significant role during such times. Our group utilized a number of sources that focus on the biological and physiological factors of social media and the brain; we then focused on the aspects of the pandemic through conducted research and analyzing polls and surveys. Through the research, it was found that social media often leads to having more detrimental effects due to procuring body image issues and stress relating to other people’s points of view; but, in the case of the brain, during utilization of social media, the brain is highly stimulated and plays an active role in recognition and cognition. Finally, social media was found to have an impact on spreading the fear and panic associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.