App Anxiety

You mental health may well be at risk if you are succumbing too often and too much to the siren call of your favorite social media app(s). Apparently our biology is having trouble adapting to the new app-reality, so our brains are chemically trying to compensate–and not having much success. Have a look at this article:

http://www.ibtimes.com/anxiety-social-media-brains-addiction-checking-accounts-2573690

Cal State University professor Larry Rosen is quoted: “We have kind of dug ourselves into a hole where we feel the need to check in often [on social media]. You’re constantly feeling this urge or need.”

And if you fail to scratch that itch, you get anxious, thanks to brain chemistry.

Article author Denisse Moreno notes, “Once you start feeling the need to look at your social apps, you’ll start showing signs like palm sweat, armpit sweat or butterflies in your stomach, depending on how your body usually reacts when you’re nervous. Because of those feelings, you give in and end up checking your social media to make the anxiety go away.”

The solution? Control the chemistry. But that may be easier said than done….