Parents ignorant of its ill-effects on brains of adolescent children who routinely fall prey to it: Expert
Social media is as dangerous and hazardous as narcotics, according to a research by a team of clinical psychologists, neurobiologists, teachers and social scientists in North Carolina University in the USA.
Though the research, the first of its kind in the sphere of social media, is being held in the US, the revelations that have come out till date suggest that India, especially Kerala, is taking the brunt of the ill-effects of this technology, which had given high hopes by shrinking the world into a global village.
In Kerala, adolescent girls as well as grown up females, including middle-aged women routinely, fall prey to the predators lurching behind social media cover. Not a single day passes in Kerala without news reports of girls and women running away with their “prince charming” who would have courted them only through social media sites.
Why do adolescents fall easy prey to social media? “Last five years of research held among adolescents show that their brains are susceptible to social media. The pubertal hormones affect the brain a year or two before there are any physical changes. Those hormones flood the young brain with neurotransmitters responsible for feeling good and the urge for social interactions and acceptance,” sums up Gerald Posner, an award winning author of books like God’s Bankers and Pharma.
Posner is on a mission to bring out a book on the dark deeds of social media giants who employ science and technology experts to woo the young and old and make them sit glued to the screens. It is only a matter of time before they fall prey to the designs of the predators.
Jim Winston, scion of a business family that made a fortune through real estate and a clinical psychologist by profession, is the name the world is going to hear frequently as he is the one who is taking on social media bull by its horns to save the young and old alike.
Winston has found that the parents are ignorant about the ill effects social media create in the brains of their adolescent children. He found that no study has been held till date to understand the biological impact the social media creates in the brain. Posner says it is worse than the impact made by narcotics. The social media giants try all tricks in the game to make people addicted to it.
“Forget about the old people. The children, especially adolescents end up us speeding vehicles without breaks. They lose the ability to read classics,” he told The Pioneer.
The research is expected to give a solution which would help parents, clinical psychologists and teachers to wean away potential victims from social media that has developed itself into an octopus, feels Posner.
