Facebrain. More Facebook equals less gray matter (and vice versa)

It's 1am. You're in a haze. You're looking at a picture taken Christmas morning in the living room of a family you don't know and will almost certainly never meet. It's that cute guy's ex-girlfriend's Zoomba teacher's mutual friend who has that raw food channel on YouTube. "I should really post more family stuff", you think. Your hot, puffy eyes catch a glimpse of the time. The haze lifts (you only lost two hours clicking and scrolling this time). What the eff am I doing? Good question and good news. Science is slowly starting to figure that out. If your brain is listening, this is for it.

Facebook (or any number of social media apps like Instagram, Snapchat, or Twitter) have probably robbed you of precious clock ticks on more than one click-holey occasion. If that doesn't resonate with you, bravissimo/a, you're in the minority. If it does, fellow creeper, there's a part of your brain that may be smaller than you'd like it to be. Dr Christian Montag at Ulm University in Germany (Universität Ulm, if your prefer, I do) has been looking at the ways we chase validation online and what that means for our fleshy hardware.  

By putting 46 men and 39 women in an MRI machine (not all at once), Montag scanned their respective brain structures as they used Facebook on their phones over the course of five weeks. His researchers carefully tracked how often and how long each person spent tangled in Zuckerberg's wonderweb and one clear biological marker emerged. Those who logged on and stayed on Facebook the longest all had less grey matter in one telling area of the brain: the nucleus accumbens, our cerebral reward center. "In short, the lower the gray matter volume in this area, the higher Facebook usage/frequency could be observed," explains Montag. If your aren't acquainted with this small morsel of brain meat, it's a crucial part of our mesocorticolimbic dopaminergic system.

Don't worry there won't be a quiz later but this is worth remembering. The nucleus accumbens lights up like Times Square when we eat food, have sex, gamble, look at a pic of a loved and yes, when we get a "Like" (or emoticon) on Facebook. Most importantly, when stimulated it triggers a dopamine response that simply feels good. This tiny node deep in our noodles, linked to both reward stimuli and aversive stimuli, has been a pivotal focus of a ton of science looking to unpack and assuage addiction.

If you want to get to know the nucleus accumbens a bit more, this video should help.

Admittedly, Montag and his researchers were paying close attention to the nucleus accumbens before and during the study. We've know for awhile that there is a nefariously addictive element to social media. That the research also focused on smartphone use is key. Montag says that PC use is different in that it can be passive but "the users of the smartphones are checking their Facebook account in expectation of 'Likes', nice comments, etc." They're looking for a fix.  

If you're confidently and smugly patting yourself on the back with one hand while the other scrolls through some other social media app that isn't Facebook, stay your hubris.

A study last year out of UCLA's brain mapping center that looked at teenage social media habits found that the same reward hubs of the brain sparked up like a field of lightning bugs every time they got a 'like' on a bespoke app that closely mirrored Instagram. All apps are predicated (very successfully) on one pretty basic objective: keep the user using.  

"Smartphones, Facebook – in short the digital world – is a major part of our lives," says Montag.  "A better neuroscientific understanding of digital usage is of importance to also understand how our brains react and are shaped by digital societies." His study doesn't cover a digital detox or whether or not that might reverse the cerebral shrinkage. But a better study might be to explore if such an detox is even feasible at this stage. More and more of our societies (basic interactions, business, socializing, education) are decidedly digital.

Montag is clear that more research is needed to understand the diminutive gray matter and its true relevance for neuroscience, addiction and health. His team isn't sure which comes first, less gray matter or more FB. "We do not know from the present data if low volumes in this area are a cause or consequence of Facebook usage." Do we have a smaller nucleus accumbens because we need Facebook or do we as a planet need Facebook because we have small nucleus accumbens (nuclei accumbenses?). Many more brain scans of addictive social media use is needed. The former may take some funding, but the later won't be tough to come by.

Marc Beaulieu is a writer, producer and host of the live Q&A show guyQ LIVE @AskMen