An American researcher has claimed that Twitter, and other social networking sites, can trigger the cuddle hormone oxytocin being released in the brain, just as it is by real relationships.

Paul Zak, neuroeconomist at Claremont Graduate University in California, tested this recently on a journalist Adam Penenberg who was writing about Zak’s work for this Fast Company article.

Zak tested Penenberg’s blood before and after he used Twitter for 10 minutes, sending and receiving tweets the whole time. He found that oxytocin levels went up substantially, and that stress hormones went down.

This is great news, because other research has shown that people are more empathetic when their oxytocin levels go up, Zak said. They are more kind, honest and fair to others. In other words, people may be nicer – at least for about an hour – after they’ve been interacting with social media, he said

It’s also good news for those who spend as much time interacting online as offline, something that others have been criticising as being unhealthy for some time.