Social network sites may be changing people’s brains as well as their social life, research suggests. Brain scans show a direct link between the number of Facebook friends a person has and the size of certain parts of their brain.
It’s not clear whether using social networks boosts grey matter or if those with certain brain structures are good at making friends, say researchers. The regions involved have roles in social interaction, memory and autism.
The work, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, looked at 3-D brain scans of 125 university students from London. Researchers counted the number of Facebook friends each volunteer had, as well as assessing the size of their network of real friends. A strong link was found between the number of Facebook friends a person had and the amount of grey matter in certain parts of their brain.
The study also showed that the number of Facebook friends a person was in touch with was reflected in the number of “real-world” friends.
“We cannot escape the ubiquity of the internet and its impact on our lives, yet we understand little of its impact on the brain, which we know is plastic and can change over time”
Dr John Williams, Head of Neuroscience and Mental Health at the Wellcome Trust
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