Tuesday, October 14, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

Frequent use of social media can affect young people’s brains

Published 1 February 2023
– By Editorial Staff
3 minute read

In a new study, researchers have scanned the brains of teenagers as they use social media. Specifically they looked at the areas of the brain that respond to social rewards and punishments. It found that those who used Instagram several times a day, for example, became more sensitive to social feedback.

– ‘We don’t know if that’s good or bad,’ says researcher Eva Telzer. However, if it becomes compulsive and addictive and takes away their ability to engage in their social world, it could potentially become maladaptive.

How the growing digital world, and perhaps social media in particular, affects young people is a topic of much debate. In particular, how screen-time and the harsh environment of, for example, TikTok and Instagram will affect children and young people in the longer term is a constant concern for many people.

A study published last year, for example, saw how health videos on TikTok contributed to young people’s skewed view of health and inaccurate images of food and nutrition.

Now a new study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, has investigated whether frequent viewing of social media is associated with changes in brain development in young people. The researchers used a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look at brain development in children over a three-year period.

The study involved 169 children aged 12 to 13 from North Carolina in the US. The children were from diverse backgrounds and included both girls and boys. Participants were asked to report how often they looked at the social media apps Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat where it could range from once a day to upwards of 20 times a day.

– ‘We know that adolescence is one of the most important periods for brain development – it goes through more changes second only to what we see in early infancy,’ says study author Eva Telzer, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience. It’s a really dramatic period of brain development, especially in those brain regions that respond to social rewards.

The children then underwent annual fMRI scans where they were asked to look at and respond to different images regarding social feedback in the form of social reward, punishment or neutral images.

– ‘We can take pictures of their brains and see which brain regions are activated when they see these social rewards and which brain regions change over these three years,’ says Telzer.

The researchers found that children who looked at social media up to 15 times a day showed differences in how their brains developed over the next three years, when it came to social feedback. In some brain regions, sensitivity to social rewards and punishments increased. Even those who watched less social media showed increased sensitivity at the beginning of the study, but it decreased over time.

Social rewards can be felt, for example, when you receive praise or when you receive money. However, this is also true when you receive “likes” or positive comments on social media. Social punishments are instead when you receive negative feedback from people and can be compared on social media to, for example, a negative comment.

– Social media platforms deliver a constant and unpredictable stream of social feedback in the form of likes, comments, notifications and messages. These social inputs are frequent, inconsistent and sometimes rewarding, making them particularly powerful reinforcers that can condition users to check social media repeatedly, says co-author and psychologist Kara Fox.

The researchers now believe that frequent use of social media by young people may lead to increased sensitivity to social feedback in adulthood as well, both for social rewards and punishments.

– We don’t know if that’s good or bad – if the brain adapts in a way that allows teenagers to navigate and respond to the world they live in, that could be very good, Telzer says. If, on the other hand, it becomes compulsive and addictive and takes away from their ability to engage in their social world, it could potentially become maladaptive.

At the same time, the researchers note that more research is needed in this area, but add that they recommend that parents try to get their children involved in activities that do not include screens.

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WHO sounds alarm: Common infections becoming impossible to treat

Published today 15:12
– By Editorial Staff
Bacteria develop resistance when antibiotics are used incorrectly or unnecessarily.
2 minute read

Common infections are becoming increasingly difficult – and sometimes impossible – to treat.

New data from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that one in six bacterial infections globally is resistant to standard antibiotics, threatening millions of lives and straining healthcare systems worldwide.

According to WHO’s latest report, antibiotic resistance increased in over 40 percent of the tracked combinations of bacteria and drugs between 2018 and 2023, with average annual increases of 5 to 15 percent.

— Antimicrobial resistance is outpacing advances in modern medicine, threatening the health of families worldwide, says WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The report, based on data from over 100 countries, shows that one in three infections in WHO’s South-East Asia and Eastern Mediterranean regions were resistant to antibiotics, compared to one in five in Africa.

Overuse of antibiotics

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites evolve to resist the drugs designed to kill them.

This is primarily driven by overuse and misuse of antibiotics in humans, animals, and agriculture. Poor infection control, limited access to quality medicines, and inadequate sanitation and clean water further exacerbate the problem.

WHO estimates that bacterial AMR directly caused 1.27 million deaths in 2019 and contributed to nearly five million deaths globally. Without action, experts warn that resistant infections could cause an estimated €2.7 trillion in global GDP losses annually by 2030.

“We must innovate”

The greatest danger comes from certain disease-causing gram-negative bacteria, as their protective outer shell makes them difficult to kill and they often develop drug resistance. E. coli and K. pneumoniae, two common causes of bloodstream infections, show alarming resistance levels.

Globally, more than 40 percent of E. coli strains and 55 percent of K. pneumoniae strains were resistant to third-generation cephalosporins – the first-line treatment for many serious infections. In parts of Africa, levels exceed 70 percent.

— Our future also depends on strengthening systems to prevent, diagnose and treat infections and on innovating with next-generation antibiotics and rapid point-of-care molecular tests, declares the WHO Director-General, who as usual calls for more resources to be allocated to vaccination programs.

— We must use antibiotics responsibly, and make sure everyone has access to the right medicines, quality-assured diagnostics, and vaccines, the statement reads.

USA: Cognitive abilities declining among young adults

Published 11 October 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Economic stress, digital dependency and an uncertain job market may be behind the increase, according to researchers.
2 minute read

An increasing number of adults in the United States are experiencing problems with cognitive abilities such as concentration, memory, or decision-making. The increase has primarily occurred among adults aged 18 to 39.

The study is based on data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey, an annual telephone survey conducted by state health departments in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers examined data on brain health between 2013 and 2023. A total of 4.5 million responses were recorded during the study period.

Increased most among young adults

The results, which are presented in Neurology, show that there has been a sharp increase in cognitive impairment problems with concentration or memory, for example during the study period. The increase began in 2016 and has continued to rise since then.

Between 2013 and 2023, cognitive impairment among adults without depression increased from 5.3 percent to 7.4 percent. Among young adults aged 18 to 39, the increase was most pronounced, more than doubling from 5.1 percent in 2013 to 10.2 percent a decade later.

Digitalization may contribute

However, the causes of the increase remain unclear, researchers say. It may partly be due to increased awareness among young adults that makes them more likely to acknowledge brain health issues.

But I certainly don’t think it is the sole cause at all, says study co-author Ka-Ho Wong, a public health scientist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, in a press release.

Wong believes that economic stress, job market uncertainty, and increased dependence on digital tools play a major role. As an example, Wong notes that while his parents can remember their home phone numbers from childhood, younger adults “can barely remember our own cell phone numbers half the time”. The results indicate, however, that doctors and public health officials should pay greater attention to brain health among young adults.

If they report it, we need to address it, says Wong.

Professor: We’re trading source criticism for speedy AI responses

The future of AI

Published 9 October 2025
– By Editorial Staff
AI has become a natural companion in our daily lives - but what happens if we stop thinking for ourselves and take the chatbot's answers as truth?
2 minute read

Professor Olof Sundin warns that generative AI undermines our fundamental ability to evaluate information.

When sources disappear and answers are based on probability calculations, we risk losing our source criticism.

— What we see is a paradigm shift in how we traditionally search, evaluate and understand information, states Sundin, professor of library and information science at Lund University in southern Sweden.

When we Google, we get links to sources that we can, if we want, examine and assess the credibility of. In language models like Chat GPT, users get a ready-made answer, but the sources often become invisible and frequently completely absent.

— The answer is based on probability calculations of the words you’re interested in, not on verifiable facts. These language models guess which words are likely to come next, explains Olof Sundin.

Without sources, transparency disappears and the responsibility for evaluating the information presented falls entirely on the user.

— It’s very difficult to evaluate knowledge without sources if you don’t know the subject, since it’s a source-critical task, he explains.

“More dependent on the systems”

Some AI systems have tried to meet the criticism through RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation), where the language model summarizes information from actual sources, but research shows a concerning pattern.

— Studies from, for example, the Pew Research Institute show that users are less inclined to follow links than before. Fewer clicks on original sources, like blogs, newspapers and Wikipedia, threaten the digital knowledge ecosystem, argues Sundin.

— It has probably always been the case that we often search for answers and not sources. But when we get only answers and no sources, we become worse at source criticism and more dependent on the systems.

Research also shows that people themselves underestimate how much trust they actually have in AI answers.

— People often say they only trust AI when it comes to simple questions. But research shows that in everyday life they actually trust AI more than they think, the professor notes.

Vulnerable to influence

How language models are trained and moderated can make them vulnerable to influence, and Sundin urges all users to consider who decides how language models are actually trained, on which texts and for what purpose.

Generative AI also has a tendency to often give incorrect answers that look “serious” and correct, which can damage trust in knowledge in society.

— When trust is eroded, there’s a risk that people start distrusting everything, and then they can reason that they might as well believe whatever they want, continues Olof Sundin.

The professor sees a great danger to two necessary prerequisites for being able to exercise democratic rights – critical thinking about sources and the ability to evaluate different voices.

— When the flow of knowledge and information becomes less transparent – that we don’t understand why we encounter what we encounter online – we risk losing that ability. This is an issue we must take seriously – before we let our ‘digital friends’ take over completely, he concludes.

Language models

AI services like ChatGPT are built on language models (such as GPT-4) that are trained on enormous amounts of text. The model predicts which word is likely to come next in a sentence, based on patterns in language usage.

It doesn't "know" what is actually true – it "guesses" what is correct based on probability calculations.

RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)

RAG combines AI-generated responses with information retrieved from real sources, such as the top three links in a Google search.

The method provides better transparency than AI services that respond entirely without source references, but studies show that users nevertheless click less and less on the links to original sources.

Study: Divorce harms young children’s development

Published 2 October 2025
– By Editorial Staff
According to a Chinese study, children of divorced parents risk falling behind in a range of different developmental areas.
2 minute read

Children whose parents divorce risk falling behind in their development – particularly in social skills, reading ability and physical health. The results come from a major study that followed 62,000 preschool children and compared children from divorced and intact families.

The research, published in the journal BMJ Paediatrics Open, is one of the largest studies conducted on younger children and shows that divorce can slow young children’s development in several areas.

Divorces don’t just affect adults but also have a significant impact on children. However, previous research has often been based on small groups of voluntary participants and produced conflicting results. Additionally, studies have primarily focused on older children, which has left knowledge about how the youngest children are affected inadequate.

The new study fills this knowledge gap by examining children between 3 and 5 years old – a critical age period where development progresses particularly rapidly and where important foundations are laid for the child’s future social, emotional and cognitive abilities.

The researchers used the so-called Human Capability Index, which measures children’s development across nine areas: reading, speech, writing, learning, persistence, language comprehension, cultural knowledge, social and emotional abilities, and physical health.

Worse at almost everything

Of the more than 62,000 children in the study, 2,409 (just under 4 percent) had parents who had divorced. When researchers compared these children with children from intact families, the differences became clear: children whose parents had divorced scored lower on almost all developmental areas.

The largest differences were in social and emotional skills, physical health and reading ability, while medium-sized differences were seen for verbal communication, persistence, language comprehension and cultural knowledge. The least impact was noticed in the areas of writing and general learning ability.

Overall, the study showed that children from divorced families had a greater risk of falling behind in their development compared to peers whose parents still lived together.

The researchers emphasize that the results highlight the need for more research on how society can support this vulnerable group. Parents, relatives and friends, healthcare services and society as a whole need to find better ways to help children through divorce processes so that their development is not negatively affected.

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