Does Instagram Lower your Testosterone?
the bad thing about television is that
everybody you see
on television is doing something better
than what you're doing
if you look at the increase in brain
size leading to the advent of humans
you'll notice that brain size suddenly
started to increase rapidly
around 2 million years ago it's a bit of
a mystery what we exactly needed all
that brain power for
though british anthropologist robin
dunbar proposes that the brain grew so
large
to keep up with the complex social
demands put on the brain
social dynamics are incredibly important
to primates and people of course
if you've ever felt awkward at a party
excited during a date or incredibly
stressed during a business meeting
you'll know that social interactions can
drastically change
the internal state of our bodies
science has found that a 5 to 15 minute
conversation with an unfamiliar woman
can raise a man's testosterone
exercise releases feel-good endorphins
but
exercising in a group releases more of
these endorphins
sports fans get a testosterone rise just
from seeing
their team win and men experience a drop
or rise in testosterone when they
experience some sort of social defeat
or social victory what's interesting is
how status directly affects
testosterone levels studies on rams and
primates
has found that you can understand quite
accurately where each
male ram or monkey falls on the social
status hierarchy
just by comparing their testosterone
levels
higher status means higher testosterone
and yes in humans
it's been found that a man's status
within an organization
correlates with his testosterone for
example a ceo
would have higher testosterone than a
manager
while not everyone likes to admit it we
all keep stock of who we feel is higher
or lower in status compared to ourselves
monkeys are so concerned with status
that they will in fact pay monkey
currency
cherry juice to see pictures of higher
status male
monkeys or attractive female monkeys
now if you've found yourself on
instagram paying your time and attention
to cooler people doing
cooler stuff than you maybe you know how
these monkeys feel
if you think about it it makes sense for
monkeys to be preoccupied with what's
going on with higher status monkeys
if you don't pay attention and overstep
your bounds and anger a high-ranked
monkey
this could provoke an attack so for me
while understanding what's going on with
dan bilzerian or ryan reynolds will not
benefit me in any way
some part of my brain still keeps me
interested in what these high status
people are doing
it seems that instagram is scratching an
itch that is naturally hardwired into
our brains
yet a survey of almost 1500 british
people aged
14 to 24 suggests that of the different
social media platforms
instagram has the most negative effect
on mental health
this got me interested in instagram's
potential effect on testosterone
lately it seems like men are really
interested in optimizing their
testosterone
with good reason higher testosterone is
associated with more muscle
less fat stronger bones and increased
confidence and better mood
there's all kinds of supplements diet
plans and workout plans
that are supposed to increase
testosterone so sure you could eat more
cholesterol and healthy fats
do sprints and leg workouts but i feel
that how
social dynamics affect testosterone is
not as often talked about
testosterone is very responsive to winds
testosterone raises after all kinds of
wins when you win
money win at sports or when at chess
your testosterone will raise
one study even found hockey players
experiencing a 40
rise in testosterone just from watching
a video
of them winning a past game i don't do
it for the fight i freaking hate to
fight
i like to fight in a cage and one
million of people maybe get humiliated
knocked out
i don't like to fight are you nuts i
like to win when you win you're
it's the feeling is unbelievable it's so
good that
it's worth this yeah testosterone has
been shown to raise men's interest in
women
and at the same time testosterone makes
people more comfortable with directly
greeting
and engaging with strangers so
testosterone changes your behavior in
all kinds of ways
it makes you more likely to engage in
so-called dominance challenges
master of the house
ready with the handshake down chorus boy
and if you win these dominance
challenges then
it will raise your testosterone even
further
a common dominance challenge for
primates including humans
is maintaining angry eye contact
so uh steve would do this as well he'd
say so hector
um so you're really you're really close
with your dad huh
gotta hold the gaze don't say anything
people get so uncomfortable
so is his litmus test to determine if
you're a bozo or not unsurprisingly the
very highly socially ranked billionaire
and face of
apple steve jobs exhibited high
testosterone-like behaviors
like a primal staring contest
so what would raise testosterone more
supplements and exercise or beating your
boss in some sort of sales competition
and getting a promotion and a raise
or how much would defeating your
opponent in a physical dominus challenge
and then raising your social rank
increase your testosterone
there's some interesting research on
testosterone and social anxiety social
anxiety could be characterized as a
very drastic form of subordination that
is
you perceive your status to be so low
that you subordinate yourself to most
everyone and new people become scary
so primates and humans like steve jobs
assert dominance by maintaining
angry eye contact until the opponent
averts their gaze
socially anxious people are especially
uncomfortable with eye contact
yet researchers found that giving
socially anxious people testosterone
drastically increases how comfortable
they are
with staring back at an angry face
also women with social anxiety have been
found to have lower testosterone
and other studies found that giving
people testosterone increases these
so-called
dominance behaviors behaviors that are
essentially the opposite
of socially anxious subordination
behaviors
now defeat can be a depressing cycle
literally as this paper points out
maintaining social hierarchies is
generally cyclical
where repeated defeat leads to anxious
behavior
and repeated victory promotes confident
behavior
which would then lead to more social
victories
on the other hand it's easier to lose at
social challenges
if you've already been losing do you
have a job
no you got money no do you have a woman
no you got anything on the horizon
uh no kids who are bullied or victimized
by their peers that is they are
presented with a dominance challenge
and then defeated these kids develop
symptoms of social anxiety
which makes them more likely to be
bullied in the future because they act
more submissive
and submissive kids are more likely to
be bullied
these kids then experience more defeat
perceive themselves as being
lower and lower on the social hierarchy
and they become less comfortable with
new social interactions
they are less confident become more
anxious and have more depressed
mood which are all symptoms of low
testosterone
so this is also why it's very difficult
often when you're trying to treat
someone who's depressed because you
could say there's not much difference
between being depressed
and existing in the biochemical state
that being at the bottom of the
dominance hierarchy would produce
well then the question is are you
depressed or are you
just at the bottom of a dominance
hierarchy that like the
the symptomatology is very very similar
in fact giving depressed men
testosterone in the form of a gel
has been found to have an antidepressant
effect on them
unfortunately low testosterone has all
kinds of other negative effects
including a worsened body composition
that is more fat
and less muscle so the point here
is that experiencing social defeat and
being lower on the social hierarchy
usually means lower testosterone
so here's what i'm wondering does
scrolling through a feed of people
who are more successful richer more
muscular
better looking and doing cooler things
than you make you perceive yourself
as lower in the social hierarchy and
then lower your testosterone
comparing ourselves to others is a
natural tendency for people
and it can have an effect on our
happiness just like a monkey being
pissed when his colleague gets a grape
whereas he only gets a stupid cucumber
this study titled keeping up with the
joneses found that people's satisfaction
with their salaries
is not totally based on just how much
money they're getting
but how much more money or how much less
money
they're getting compared to the people
they know
so then how many people should we be
comparing ourselves to
the other interesting thing about robin
dunbar's research is that his work
calculates that there is a cognitive
limit to the amount of friends
or acquaintances our brains can keep
track of and that limit
is 150 people dunbar gives several
examples of human groups hitting a limit
of between 100
and 200 people for example
looking at the census data of around 20
hunter-gatherer tribes
the mean tribe size was 153 people
the estimated size of english villages
in 1086 according to the dome state book
was around
150. dunbar and a colleague examined the exchange of christmas cards in the uk
and found that the maximum christmas
card network was 153 people
then a 2008 study gathering data from 18
000 brides found that the average number
of wedding guests at a wedding
was 148. naturally we probably can't
help but compare ourselves to those 150
people we know
and then establish mentally where we
rank in the different social hierarchies
these people belong to sure new people
would come and go
but how does it affect us to pick up our
phones and expose ourselves to the lives
of hundreds of people a week
and then have to calculate theirs and
our positions
on the social hierarchy
going back to the study that found that
monkeys would pay cherry juice to see
high-ranked males
they found that when it came to lower
ranked males
those monkeys would not pay at all to
see them
in fact the researchers had to bribe the
monkeys with cherry juice to get them to
even
look at the lower ranked monkeys now
let's be honest
do any of you browse instagram for
accounts of random
non-artistic average looking strangers
with average jobs
we're mostly going to look at instagram
accounts of people who we feel to be
higher status in us
and maybe meme accounts so is spending
your time looking at higher status
people
going to make you feel like you're
higher or lower on the social hierarchy
to my knowledge there's no study looking
at how instagram directly affects your
testosterone
but my point is that we should consider
testosterone to be a positive feedback
loop like spinning a wheel you can do
things that add momentum and spin the
wheel faster
or you can do things that apply the
brakes a little bit
testosterone is cyclical if your
testosterone is higher
your mood should be better and you'll
have more motivation to go to the gym
which helps maintain a healthy body
composition
and exercise as well as having a healthy
body composition
are linked to higher testosterone
in general men with higher testosterone
seem to earn more money
and specifically a study on stock
brokers found that they were more
successful
on the days that their testosterone was
higher money then gives rise to a
perception of success which is a
component of prestige
and higher prestige is associated with
higher testosterone
and as mentioned earlier men with higher
testosterone are more likely to interact
with women they're attracted to
and interacting with women raises men's
testosterone
in short raising testosterone makes it
easier
to do the things that will further raise
testosterone
unfortunately having lower testosterone
will make it easier to be in the
situations
that lower your testosterone further
so i'd say to just keep an eye on how
instagram makes you feel
if you feel no difference between using
instagram and not using it
maybe it doesn't have such a negative
effect on your psyche or your physiology
but let's say you're feeling good
feeling like a winner feeling kind of
like
someone with high testosterone because
of your success at the gym
work or in your social life or at chess
and then you go on instagram
and see someone else who is winning so
much harder than you
at that thing if that makes you feel
less like a winner
and worsens your mood maybe you should
give
instagram a break
now i'm not gonna lie i have it on
instagram so if you'd like to be jealous
of the oysters or
goosefish liver i'm eating or the papers
or books i'm reading
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a study is done on 250 people who claim
they have psychic
abilities a regular deck of cards has an
equal number of red and black
cards the deck is shuffled and each
person predicts the color of the card on
top
then they take a look and see if they're
right this is repeated eight
times in a row one participant gets
all eight predictions correct the
researcher claims that this person
has indeed exhibited psychic abilities
so based on just the way the experiment
is designed
is the researcher's claim a viable
hypothesis
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