{"id":375339,"date":"2020-02-19T15:32:13","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T13:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=375339"},"modified":"2020-02-19T15:32:13","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T13:32:13","slug":"new-research-shows-how-smartphone-addiction-is-impacting-your-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/375339\/new-research-shows-how-smartphone-addiction-is-impacting-your-brain\/","title":{"rendered":"New research shows how smartphone addiction is impacting your brain"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new study published in the science journal ‘Addictive Behaviours’ outlines<\/a> <\/strong>how smartphone addiction has a direct impact on the human brain.<\/p>\n

The study is based on a review of 48 people\u00a0 – 22 which have been diagnosed with ‘smartphone addiction’ (SPA) and a control group of 26 people.<\/p>\n

The researchers used\u00a0magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to investigate gray matter volume (GMV) and intrinsic neural activity between the two groups.<\/p>\n

Compared to the control group, the individuals with smartphone addiction showed lower GMV in the left anterior insula, inferior temporal and parahippocampal cortex.<\/p>\n

Lower intrinsic activity in the group with smartphone addiction was also found in the right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). This was reflected by both a decrease in ACC\u00a0volume and activity.<\/p>\n

Given their widespread use and increasing popularity, the present study questions the harmlessness of smartphones, at least in individuals that may be at increased risk for developing smartphone-related addictive behaviours, the researchers said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The latest Global Digital Yearbook for 2019 shows that South Africans spend the 6th longest time online, connected for an average of 8 hours and 25 minutes each day, on any device.<\/p>\n

This is far higher than the global average of 6 hours and 41 minutes \u2013 and not that far below the biggest internet addicts, the Philippines, who spend over 10 hours a day on average online.<\/p>\n

Connecting via computers, South Africans are the world\u2019s second-biggest internet addicts, spending almost 5 hours a day, on average, glued to our screens.<\/p>\n

South Africans also spend more time using social media platforms than the global average, with the report recording the average time spent at 2 hours and 48 minutes each day.<\/p>\n

The average social media user, globally, spends 2 hours and 16 minutes on social platforms each day \u2013 with extreme users (Philippines) spending over 4 hours.<\/p>\n

South Africans have eight social media accounts on average.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: The top 10 best-selling smartphone brands in the world right now<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new study published in the science journal ‘Addictive Behaviours’ outlines how smartphone addiction has a direct impact on people’s brains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":375379,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-375339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375339"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":375383,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375339\/revisions\/375383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}