Ania G

The average person spends more than 3 hours a day on their phone, most of it on social media. While it may not seem harmful, studies show that repeatedly doing anything for long periods of time can cause physiological changes in the brain. Heavy social media users perform worse on cognitive tests, especially those that test their attention and multitasking abilities. Besides, social media provides immediate rewards in the form of dopamine release, which often lead to addiction. Studies even show that the brain scans of heavy users look very similar to those addicted to drugs or gambling. Social media use is also linked with memory deficits. This is because when you store information elsewhere, your brain gets the message that it no longer needs to store it. Social media has many positive aspects and it would be hard to stop using it. However, using it too much leads to long-term deficits in brain size and function. Source: https://neurogrow.com/what-social-media-does-to-your-brai...

It's a common belief that the left and right hemispheres of the brain are separate: the left is for logical thinking and the right is for creativity. Many people categorize themselves as being left or right brain-oriented depending on their interests and skills. However, functions of the brain can’t be captured in such black and white reasoning. Both halves of the brain are used regularly. For example, if you listen to music, the temporal lobe allows you to hear it. However, you use many parts of your brain to emotionally respond to music, sense the rhythm, and follow the melody. It’s still true that language is left-oriented and emotions are right-oriented, and that the lobes of the brain have specific tasks. But no evidence suggests that a person’s left or right of the brain is stronger than the other.  So it's a myth that the hemispheres of the brain oppose each other and everyone uses one of them more. I think this concept is so popular because it gives people a defined per...

Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language in which the same basic sounds can refer to totally different things based on the tone with which it is spoken. In a non-tonal language such as English, tone might convey emotional information about the speaker, but doesn’t change the meaning of the word. Researchers have found that differences between those languages change the way the brain’s networks work.  Although both groups of speakers activated the classical brain areas responsible for speech, two important differences emerged. English speakers showed stronger connectivity leading from Wernicke’s area to Broca’s area. Because this language relies more heavily on phonological information - sounds rather than tones. Meanwhile, Chinese speakers had stronger connections leading from the anterior superior temporal gyrus, as enhanced mapping of sound and meaning is more important in tonal languages. The other difference is that among Chinese speakers, there was also activation in the right hem...