Brain Anatomy
The field is defined as the study of the nervous system, specifically the brain.
What is Neuroscience?
While neuroscience studies the brain, this field is the study of behavior and mental processing.
What is Psychology?
Likes, comments, and notifications on social media activate these specific neural pathways.
What are Reward Pathways?
A child's brain has reached 90% of its adult size by this age.
What is 6?
This life stage is described as a "critical period" for brain development.
What is Adolescence?
This system is known as the "emotion center" and is highly reactive in adolescents.
What is the Limbic System?
During adolescence, influence shifts away from the family and toward this group.
Who are Peers/Friends?
Constant comparison to others online is cited as increasing these two negative feelings.
What are Anxiety and Self-Consciousness?
In 2022, only this percentage of teenagers reported daily face-to-face interaction with friends.
What is 36%?
The visual, motor, and this center of the brain go into "high gear" during the teen years.
What is Emotional?
This area of the brain, responsible for impulse control and regulation, is still developing during the teen years.
What is the Prefrontal Cortex?
Because the emotional centers are in "high gear" but control is low, adolescents often get a bad reputation for this type of behavior.
What is Impulsive (or Risky/Rebellious) behavior?
This neurotransmitter is the chemical messenger primarily released during the "reward" cycle of social media usage.
What is Dopamine?
This was the percentage of teens reporting daily face-to-face interactions in 2006.
What is 53%?
This "stress hormone" can be elevated by the anxiety produced by social media comparison.
What is Cortisol?
Adolescents often struggle because there is a developmental "gap" between the Prefrontal Cortex and this specific part of the limbic system responsible for fear an aggression.
What is the Amygdala?
The "gap" between emotion and control leaves teens specifically vulnerable to these two mental health struggles.
What are Anxiety and Depression?
While online interaction can amplify stress, it can also amplify this positive aspect.
What is Connection?
This is the approximate age when the human brain is considered fully developed (specifically the prefrontal cortex).
What is 25?
This is the process where the brain removes weak or unused connections to become more efficient during adolescence.
What is Synaptic Pruning?
This fatty substance coats axons to speed up brain processing. Its development continues into a person's mid-20s.
What is Myelin (or Myelination)?
This term describes the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections, which is happening rapidly during adolescence.
What is Neuroplasticity?
This phenomenon, often driven by social media, is the apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent.
What is FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)?
The decline in face-to-face interaction between 2006 and 2022 represents a drop of this many percentage points.
What is 17%?
This term refers to the daily biological clock that regulates sleep-wake cycles, often disrupted in teens by screen light.
What is Circadian Rhythm?