By Dr. Fabiano de Abreu Agrela Rodrigues – Post-PhD in Neuroscience, Member of the Society for Neuroscience, Sigma Xi and Royal Society of Biology
We live in an era of hyperconnectivity. The simple gesture of swiping a finger on a screen has become an automatic, ubiquitous and socially accepted behavior. However, this new form of digital interaction has shaped our brains in ways that are not yet fully understood, but are increasingly evident in the field of behavioral neuroscience. Symptoms resulting from excessive use of social media often mimic those of clinical psychiatric disorders, such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Bipolar Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder (sociopathy). This
is not a diagnosis. It is a question of functional behaviors that become dysfunctional when repeated excessively and outside the natural context of human development. Brain plasticity, while allowing us to adapt, also transforms us — for better or for worse.
Digital Dopamine: An Artificial Reward Pattern
Social media operates through instant positive reinforcement. Each like, comment, or view activates the dopaminergic reward system—especially the nucleus accumbens, just as drugs or gambling do. The effect? A brain trained to seek constant gratification, losing tolerance to the boredom, waiting, and monotony of the real world.
This cycle reinforces patterns similar to ADHD: constant distraction, impulsivity, and the incessant search for stimulation. Children and adolescents who should develop sustained attention are prematurely exposed to immediate gratification, which interrupts the full maturation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a region essential for inhibitory control, planning, and focus.
The Bipolarity of Engagement
The emotional cycle experienced on social media—euphoria for validation and discouragement for rejection—mimics the poles of bipolarity. Peaks of interaction generate excitement, high self-esteem, and a sense of importance. The lack of social response or comparison generates apathy, irritability and self-devaluation. This emotional oscillation, although not pathological, simulates a hypomanic-depressive affective cycle, with real impacts on mental health.
In addition, the orbitofrontal cortex, responsible for emotional regulation and social judgment, tends to be overloaded with contradictory stimuli, which can generate distortions in the perception of self-worth and emotional stability.
Narcissism and Digitalized Sociopathy
On social media, performance trumps authenticity. Constant self-expression and the value attributed to appearance and engagement reinforce narcissistic behavior. In extreme cases, we observe functional sociopathic traits: lack of empathy, objectification of others, emotional manipulation, and moral disinhibition.
This lack of social restraints — typical of anonymity or the logic of “likes” — is related to a functional disconnection between the amygdala, responsible for emotional empathy, and the anterior cingulate cortex, essential for the ethical control of actions.
Intelligence and the Danger of Malingering Disorders
It is important to emphasize that we are not facing a clinical epidemic, but a functional epidemic. Excessive digital stimulation produces changes in behavior that resemble psychiatric illnesses — but are, in fact, products of the environment.
True intelligence, as I have been arguing in the DWRI (Development of Wide Regions of Intellectual Interference) theory, depends on the integration of logical cognition, emotional intelligence, and social intelligence. The imbalance generated by exaggerated digitalism breaks this integration, damaging the capacity for introspection, empathy and judgment.
Conclusion
Contemporary neuroscience warns us: the abusive use of social media is reshaping our brains and behaviors. We need to abandon the naivety that it is just entertainment. We are creating overstimulated but emotionally impoverished brains. Digital education becomes urgent — not only for children and adolescents, but for an entire society that has not yet understood the costs of immediate gratification.
References
• Castellanos, FX, & Proal, E. (2012). Large-scale brain systems in ADHD: Beyond the prefrontal-striatal model. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(1), 17-26.
• Raichle, ME (2015). The brain’s default mode network. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 38, 433–447.
• Abreu, F. de. (2024). Neurobiology and Foundations of Intelligence DWRI. CPAH.
• Abreu, F. de. (2024). What is Extreme Intelligence. CPAH.
• American Psychological Association. (2023). Social Media and Mental Health: Emerging Evidence and Best Practices.
• Twenge, JM, & Campbell, WK (2018). The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement. Free Press.
• Andreassen, CS et al. (2012). Development of a Facebook Addiction Scale. Psychological Reports, 110(2), 501–517.
