Neurophysiological Reactions to Social Media Logos

Abstract

Use of social media is pervasive, and research has identified many benefits that arise from the affordances of social media platforms. Yet, social media use can often interfere with other areas of life, a condition termed social media overuse. Prior literature suggest that social media use can satisfy basic hedonic needs, triggering activation of the brain’s reward processing network and inducing higher levels of use. In this paper we propose a study to examine the relationship between social media cues and the neurological reactions that underlie social media overuse. The study employs the affect misattribution procedure (AMP) to elicit spontaneous reactions to cues from three task conditions (social media logos, office images, non-social media company logos). Participants complete the study while situated in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. We postulate an interaction between task condition and reported social media cravings/usage in rewards network regions of the brain.