For the lonely, a blurred line between real and fictional people
news.osu.edu
In lonely people, the boundary between real friends and favorite fictional characters gets blurred in the part of the brain that is active when thinking about others, a new study found.Researchers scanned the brains of people who were fans of “Game of Thrones” while they thought about various characters in the show and about their real frien...

Using fMRI scans on 19 lonely fans of “Game of Thrones”, researchers discovered that they processed their favorite characters similarly to real friends in their brains. This suggests that lonelier …::In lonely people, the boundary between real friends and favorite fictional characters gets blurred in the part of the brain that is active when thinking about others, a new study found.Researchers scanned the brains of people who were fans of “Game of Thrones” while they thought about various characters in the show and about their real frien…

  • kandoh@reddthat.comEnglish
    23·
    9 months ago

    Years ago there was a guy on reddit who gave up media for a month. He said he got lonely, and would head out to public spaces just to be around people.

    • vector_zero@lemmy.worldEnglish
      122·
      9 months ago

      So if we ban social media, people will return to the real world and socialize, rather than wallowing in an online pit of rage and despair?