With 2.41 billion monthly active users as of June 2019, Facebook is still the biggest social media platform around. This isn’t a surprise considering how Facebook is designed to be addictive in many ways. Here are some ways Facebook is affecting our minds.

4 Ways Facebook is affecting our Minds

1) A notification — whether’s it a for a like, react, share, or comment — serves as a dopamine hit especially if it’s a positive social interaction. Each hit adds to one’s addictive compulsion, affecting the brain the same way meth, crack, and heroin do.

2) Veteran netizens have different brains compared to newbie netizens, but it doesn’t take much to alter the brain in the first place. Activity in the prefrontal cortex increases in newbies after spending only five hours on the internet, particularly on social media. The more time spent online, the more the brain atrophies.

3) So-called internet addicts develop smaller brain areas for processing emotion, motor control, memory, speech, and sensory input. The size difference is around 10 to 20 percent smaller compared to non-addicts.

4)  Internet addiction is a real thing, and it’s recognized as an official disorder in China, Taiwan, and Korea. As many as a third of teenagers in these countries are addicted to the internet.

The internet is a wonderful tool, but like any other tool, it can either destroy you or empower you depending on how you wield it. Use it wisely!

Thanks to our friends at Mashable for this eye-opening infographic.