More Facebook Friends Means Bigger Brains

Scientists at the University College London have found a direct link between the number of Facebook friends a person has and the size of certain brain regions. The study also shows the more Facebook friends a person has, the more real-world friends they are likely to have.

Facebook users who have a handful of friends also tend to have smaller circles of friends in the real-world and, conversely those who have thousands of Friends on Facebook are likely to have larger circles offline, according to the study.

"Our findings support the idea that most Facebook users use the site to support their existing social relationships, maintaining or reinforcing these friendships, rather than just creating networks of entirely new, virtual friends," said Professor Geraint Rees, a Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Research Fellow at UCL in a press release.

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Professor Rees and his colleagues scanned the brains of 125 university-aged Facebook users, comparing these scans to the size of their friend networks online and the real-world. Those with larger Facebook networks had larger amounts of grey matter in several regions of the brain. One of these regions, the amygdala, is associated with processing memory and emotional responses. Pairing this with another recent study, the researchers show increased volume grey matter in the amygdala indicates a larger network of real-world friends. Together these studies show a large network of online friends also point to increased volumes of grey matter - where information processing occurs.

In addition to brain scans, the UCL researchers asked the participants questions designed to compare the size of their online networks to the size of their real-world networks.

The study stresses the correlation (not cause) between the number of friends online versus offline saying, "it is not possible from the data to say whether having more Facebook friends makes the regions of the brain larger or whether some people are 'hard-wired' to have more friends."

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There has long been debate regarding how technology is changing how we think – for better or for worse. Professor Rees said, "Online social networks are massively influential, yet we understand very little about the impact they have on our brains. This has led to a lot of unsupported speculation the internet is somehow bad for us."

Lead author Dr. Ryota Kanai said, "The exciting question now is whether these [brain] structures change over time – this will help us answer the question of whether the internet is changing our brains," in the release. Professor Rees continued, "Our study will help us begin to understand how our interactions with the world are mediated through social networks. This should allow us to start asking intelligent questions about the relationship between the internet and the brain."

Interestingly, the size of three other regions correlated with the size of online social networks (but not real-world networks):

• Right superior temporal sulcus - thought to decipher where others are gazing and determining the focus of others' emotions.
• Left middle temporal gyrus - connected with contemplating distance, recognition of known faces and assessing word meaning.
• Right entorhinal cortex - connected to episodic/autobiographical/declarative memory as well as many other functions.

 The Head of Neuroscience and Mental Health at the Wellcome Trust commented in the release, "This new study illustrates how well-designed investigations can help us begin to understand whether or not our brains are evolving as they adapt to the challenges posed by social media."

Photos: Top: Getty Images. Bottom: My Facebook Friends by enda_001 on Flickr. Some rights reserved