Our addiction to your smartphone is literally physically changing your brain in much the same way an addiction to cocaine does.
It's affecting the grey matter, based on new research published in the Journal of Addictive Behavior using MRI's to visually see a smartphone's impact. The happy brain-rush you get from a phone, though, isn't entirely dissimilar to when TV was first introduced in the 40's. People couldn't get enough TV, according to Leigh Richardson from the Brain Performance Center. “Whenever you’re doing anything and thinking, ‘Wow! I like this! I like this a lot!’ whether it’s a car or a tv or a phone then your brain starts kicking out all this dopamine,” she tells KTRH. And the brain starts changing.
The real concern is how physiological changes will impact the developing brain in children. “It’s changing the actual shape, and the structure of the brain, and it’s certainly causing psychological and social problems as well as neurological disorders,” Richardson says. We won't know for decades.