Social Networking and the Empty Calorie

[Acolyte]

:!:
A fantastic article for us web addicts and those who care about the future of society...
Are Our Minds Going The Way Of Our Waists?

"An absence of glucose in the blood occurs as hunger, which makes you feel anxious until resolved with a good feed. The absence of social connections also generates a type of hunger, it's a hunger otherwise known as 'loneliness' that also makes you feel anxious until it's resolved.

It's this hunger that starts to explain the incredible success of organizations like Facebook and Twitter. When you connect with people online, you're getting a little zing in your reward center, which makes you want to stay there and keep zinging...

...Social media sites are like an online candy store for your brain....

...The trouble is, like a syrupy muffin, connecting socially online may be like eating empty calories. The circuitry activated when you connect online is the 'seeking' circuitry of dopamine. Yet when we connect with people online, we don't tend to get the oxytocin or seratonin calming reward that happens when we bond with someone in real time, when our circuits resonate with real-time shared emotions and experiences. As a result, you want more and more social connections"

:?
If we want to "eat healthy," how do we make friends when no one's around?
Can the technology that caused this problem help solve it?
Can we have the best of both worlds?

 

[burnt]

It can go bothways. Sometimes social networking is good because it facilitates conversation and interaction with people in real life. I think the only time its a problem is if people do it too much or use it as a way to communicate but not really communicate you know? Like use it as a tool to avoid socializing but to still socialize in a half assed way.