A new study by the University College of London found a link between the size of your brain and the number of friends you have on Facebook. That’s right, more friends, bigger brains.
Now, I hesitated sharing this news because:
1. I always wonder just how realistic these kinds of studies can be.
2. If it’s true, I worry that my lack of interest in gazillions of Facebook friends must mean my brain is a pitiful little thing.
Anyway, putting my own brain envy aside, the study’s details are as follows: Researchers said that, using brain imaging scans on a number of college students, they found that specific brain areas linked to social skills were much larger in the students with sprawling social networks than in Facebook users with fewer friends.
“We have found some interesting brain regions that seem to link to the number of friends we have—both ‘real’ and ‘virtual,'” Ryota Kanai, lead author of the study, said in a foxnews.com article
Much like the chicken or the egg debate, however, the researchers aren’t certain which came first. Did the students in the study have bigger brain bits that pushed them to be more social, or were the multitudes of social connections growing bigger brains?
“The exciting question now is whether these [brain] structures change over time,” Kanai said. “This will help us answer the question of whether the Internet is changing our brains.”
Of course, if kids start growing brain cells and looking more like the avid Facebook user pictured above, that could have an impact on their friend numbers too.
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