What Happens To Your Brain When You Mindlessly Scroll?

this episode is sponsored by fabulous your phone changes your brain as the average American touches their phone 2 600 times per day and this constant scrolling has altered your brain's neurology so what would happen to your brain and body if you tried to quit your phone after one hour of quitting you have likely tried to pick up your phone three to four times because the average person picks up their phone 52 times per day after 12 hours of quitting you may start to feel anxious as not checking your phone actually releases the stress hormone cortisol

this is due to how your phone changes these three neural Pathways in your brain they are activated when anticipating or experiencing a reward your phone's Tick Tock notifications text messages or Instagram story updates all act as many rewards to your brain and physically change how these Pathways work in the new absence of your phone cortisol is released because when you're endlessly scrolling or using social media the positive social interactions reward the brain and cause constant firing this causes a release of dopamine along these Pathways in response to your phone's constant stimulus every ding notification every

thoughty sexy photo of someone on Instagram a text message from a friend acts as a mini reward that you now associate with picking up your phone and these little associations become stronger and stronger in the Noggin until you're just constantly picking up your phone you know what I mean sometimes you're on the phone with your mom for example and looking for your phone because you're like wait where's my phone it's usually in my hand this way not on the phone and then you realize that we're all in the crisis of the cell phone age so

after 12 hours of quitting you are no longer checking your phone this lack of stimulus that you're used to in your brain causes a stress response and you start to feel anxious I hate this thing that is you really love it more than anything in the world after 24 hours of quitting and one survey found that people began to experience fomo the fear of missing out which led to increased heart rate increased blood pressure and more anxiety other people had increased anxiety but they couldn't exactly explain why it wasn't just because of fomo for example

but it is likely due to the fact that these tech companies have actually hijacked our brains using their reward prediction error encoding of our Noggins tech companies have studied these neuronal Concepts in order to keep you using their products if you look at this dopamine activity and reward chart you see that you learn behaviors when you get a reward without a cue you keep behaviors when you anticipate a reward and it gets um satisfied and you change a behavior when you anticipate a good reward but it's worse than expected so you don't want to do

it again this is all linked to our human evolution ability to survive we predict our yummy yummy food the yummy yummy food gives us Health we learn the behavior we continue to eat but when applying this to our phone we often can't predict what is going to happen when we check our phone and with notifications likes and communication we are mostly always rewarded by checking it making us learn to constantly check our phone also since checking your phone is such a low cost effort you expect small rewards and are mostly satisfied so you continue the

behavior of checking your phone the hijacking of these neuronal Pathways means you have strong incentives to check your phone other and other and over and again now that you've quit your phone the stimulus is removed and that actually leads to increased anxiety day three of quitting is when most people start to feel the Phantom vibration or Phantom ringing of their cell phone that is no longer there this is when quitting your phone starts to feel like a horror movie you'll literally start to feel your phone buzzing in your leg even though it's not there like

a goddamn ghost of your old phone but day three of quitting is when some good things start to happen because you may begin to be rewarded by your friends your family your lover because you're actually not paying attention to them you are no longer fubbing which is snubbing your loved ones for your phone oh loved one please stop talking I must snub thee for I am looking at hot man lifting weight topless on Instagram one study had participants view an animation pretending to be with a sexual partner one animation checked their phone throughout the other

did not the participants perceived the people who didn't check their phone as having a better quality of communication and increased relationship satisfaction after three days of quitting your phone you may start to notice that your relationships are improving after day five of quitting your phone and your attention span may increase you may even start noticing that you're doing better at work and school a small study of college students who actively use their phones found they now focus on subject objects for only 65 seconds another study of office workers who use their phones at work found

they can only focus for three minutes at a time but a study at the Carnegie Mellon University's human computer interaction lab took 136 students and got them to sit a test some of them had to have their phone Switched Off and the others had their phones on and received intermittent text messages the students who received text messages performed on average 20 percent worse than those who had their phones off this is because your conscious brain can only produce one or two thoughts at once every time you open a text message or check a notification your

brain has to switch from task to task creating the switch cost effect making it harder for you to concentrate but since you've quit your phone you are switching tasks less often and you may start to notice your attention span increasing and your ability to do better work at school or even at the end job after five to seven days of quitting and your cognition will continue to improve a study of 660 people examined the analytical cognitive styles of its participants on average participants with stronger cognitive skills spent less time using their smartphones the study went

as far to say there may be a potential link between heavy smartphone use and decreased intelligence reading that study was a blow to the ego because I am known for using my phone a lot more than a lot of other people and therefore yes it's a bit of proof that I am dumb after one week a long-term study found reducing cell phone use caused improved sleep some scientists argue that it is the psychological arousal of the phone that affects our sleep others argue it's the light from the screen you know you've heard all about the

blue light like oh it's burning my retinas I can't sleep there isn't any hard evidence as to why these cell phones are making you sleep less just some surveys and large studies about people who use their cell phones less getting better sleep do with that as you will after 14 days of no phone anxiety anxiety has decreased some studies even hint that you may have decreased depression this is because Studies have found that phone use may be associated with depression although it is hard to say whether your phone causes depression but one study found that

teens who spend five hours daily on their mobile devices are 71 percent more likely to develop risk factors for depression compared to those who only use their phone for an hour after two weeks you will also have reduced neck and wrist pain one study found that the longer you used your phone the more likely you were to have neck pain people who overuse their phone could also affect their hamstring this is because of an increased size in your median nerve and decreased grip strength due to using your phone the median nerve starts from your shoulder

down to all your fingers except your pinky on the palm side this increase in size of the nerve from using your phone means that you have a higher risk of getting carpal tunnel syndrome which is defined by numbness tingling and weakness in your hand so after or two weeks of not using your phone you're potentially healing not just your brain but your body too thank you to Fabulous for sponsoring this video because it is the only app that actually helps me with my phone addiction and other aspects of My Life by using science-backed daily routines

to build better habits and Achieve goals fabulous has helped me actually get things done in me dang life it's a beautifully designed little app and when I first started I was nervous so all I got it to do was help me wake up first thing and drink water an easy habit that then spiraled into a bunch of other habits I now do from this app now it helps me with my writing routines my evening routines that involve turning off my phone at 7 pm every day sitting there chewing Me nails staring at a wall not

sure what to do but this fabulous app keeps me accountable you can make it more self-guided as I have to design plans for me to paint more or you can have it be more guided through the app and it can take you through a series of Journeys that include nighttime mindfulness exercises or the creation of habits that the app decides for you based on simple surveys it's a gorgeous little app sometimes it even makes you like reach out to friends and vulnerable ways which is like really cool my friends are like wait why are you

texting me nice things I'm like I don't know this app told me to and then like my other apps it doesn't waste my time it actually helps me gain back time improve my mental and physical health and hopefully change my behavior to become a better person start building your daily routine the first 500 people who click on the link will get 25 off fabulous premium so do it and join me every night in my mindfulness exercises as I slowly become a better person thank you so much for watching make sure you're subscribed for more science

videos and if you're on your phone right now try turning it off for a couple days and see if you start to feel Phantom vibrations a little spooky spooky in the pocket peace