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How Does Chronic Short-Form Media Consumption Destabilize Dopamine and Serotonin Regulation in the Adolescent Brain?
This article argues that chronic short-form social media use destabilizes dopamine and serotonin regulation in the developing adolescent brain, as engagement-maximizing algorithms exploit the immature prefrontal cortex through reward patterns resembling behavioral addiction. Synthesizing recent neuroscientific and epidemiological evidence—including longitudinal fMRI, meta-analytic, and detox-intervention studies—it acknowledges unresolved questions of causal directionality while positioning social media as at minimum a powerful accelerant of adolescent mental health decline. It concludes that reversing this harm requires coordinated intervention across individual behavior, institutional policy, and governmental regulation.