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In this TEDxtalk (transcript is here), the speaker claims that there is a growing amount of research that shows that spending large amounts of time on social media permanently damages the capability of the brain to concentrate:

We have a growing amount of research which tells us that if you spend large portions of your day in a state of fragmented attention, so large portions of your day we are constantly breaking up your attention to get a quick glance, just check and just quickly look at Instagram that this can permanently reduce your capacity for concentration. In other words, you could permanently reduce your capacity to do exactly the type of deep effort that we’re finding to be more and more necessary in an increasingly competitive economy.

Has this indeed been demonstrated scientifically? I could not find any such research.
A possibly related but different question here.

Laurel
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qurio
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    I'm much more skeptical of the "permanently" part than the "damages concentration" part. Intuitively, I would think that practice works in both directions. – Brilliand Aug 21 '17 at 21:39
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    "Constant interruptions to check something damages attention span" - Do you even _have kids_, bro? Social media comes nowhere close to your toddler calling for you from the yard by the seventh time to show you a dry leaf. – T. Sar Aug 22 '17 at 16:42
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    @Brilliand I also doubt that "social media" has been around long enough to really establish that any effect is permanent. – KSmarts Aug 29 '17 at 19:49

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