Tali Sharot

Again, it's adaptive because if something is novel, we're not quite sure is it, how good is it or how frightening is it?

So it makes sense for our brain to be very attentive and very responsive to things that are novel.

We talk about these things, we suspect that are probably affecting us in a negative way, but they're always in the background.

So you can't really tell how bad are they really for you.

And a great analogy is the AC kind of going in the background.

So the noise of the air conditioner is there, but you really don't notice how annoying it is until someone turns it off.

And then you're suddenly, oh, I'm so glad.

I feel so much better now without that noise.

We think social media is a little bit like that.

Studies suggest that social media does have a negative effect on people's mental health.

But people don't really realize to what extent.

And without taking a break from social media, you wouldn't really know.

There is a great study that was conducted by the economist Hunt Alcott.

What he did was he gave 1,000 individuals $100 each in order to quit Facebook for a month.

This is quite an old study, so it was conducted on Facebook.

And then he gave another group of 1,000 individuals $100 to just go on with life as usual.

They didn't do anything special.

At the end of the month, he came back to all these people and he gave them a questionnaire on how happy they are.

Are they anxious?

Are they depressed?