This video discusses the impact of social media and the internet on our brains. It covers topics such as internet addiction, the effects of multitasking, Phantom Vibration Syndrome, and the role of dopamine in social media use. The video also touches on how online interactions can affect relationships.

Social media sites are used by one-third of the entire world, clearly indicating their major influence on society. But what about their impact on our bodies? Here are five crazy ways that social media and the internet are affecting your brain right now. Can't log off? Surprisingly, 5-10% of internet users are actually unable to control how much time they spend online. Though it's a psychological addiction as opposed to a substance addiction, brain scans of these people show a similar impairment of regions that those with drug dependence have. Specifically, there's a clear degradation of white matter in the regions that control emotional processing, attention, and decision making. Because social media provides immediate rewards with very little effort required, your brain begins to rewire itself, making you desire these stimulations. You begin to crave more of this neurological excitement after each interaction. Sounds a little like a drug, right? We also see a shift when looking at multitasking. You might think that those who use social media or constantly switch between work and websites are better at multitasking, but studies have found that when comparing heavy media users to others, they perform much worse during task-switching tests. Increased multitasking online reduces your brain's ability to filter out interferences, and can even make it harder for your brain to commit information to memory. Like when your phone buzzes in the middle of productive work. Or wait, did it even buzz? Phantom Vibration Syndrome is a relatively new psychological phenomenon where you think you felt your phone go off, but it didn't. In one study, 89% of test subjects said they experienced this at least once every two weeks. It would seem that our brains now perceive an itch as an actual vibration from our phone. As crazy as it seems, technology has begun to rewire our nervous system, and our brains are being triggered in a way they never have before in history. Social media also triggers a release of dopamine, the feel-good chemical. Using MRI scans, scientists found that the reward centers in people's brains are much more active when they're talking about their own views as opposed to listening to others. Not so surprising, we all love talking about ourselves, right? But it turns out that while 30-40% of face-to-face conversations involve communicating our own experiences, around 80% of social media communication is self-involved. The same part of your brain related to orgasms, motivation, and love are stimulated by your social media use, and even more so when you know you have an audience. Our body is physiologically rewarding us for talking about ourselves online. But it's not all so self-involved. In fact, studies on relationships have found that partners tend to like each other more if they meet for the first time online, rather than with a face-to-face interaction. Whether it's because people are more anonymous, or perhaps more clear about their future goals, there's a statistical increase in successful partnerships that started online. So, while the internet has changed our verbal communication with increased physical separation, perhaps the ones that matter the most end up even closer. Speaking of social media, we had you ask us questions on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, and every other social platform we could find, and did a Q&A video over on AsapTHOUGHT. So, if you feel like getting some insider info on AsapSCIENCE and behind-the-scenes, check it out with the link in the description. Got a burning question you want answered? Ask it in the comments or on Facebook and Twitter. We also finally got a P.O. Box for all of you amazing science lovers who have requested to send us mail or other stuff over the years. And we'd love to hear from all of you, so feel free to use the address on the screen or in the description below.