A new study found that young people are more sensitive to social media ‘likes’ than adults. The findings highlight a need for digital competency programs to help young people manage social media feedback. The corresponding study was published in Science Advances.
Social media is now an indispensable part of life for most young people in the US. While it is often argued that continuous exposure to social media feedback negatively impacts the hypersensitive developing brain, studies pointing towards this have been lacking. In the current study, researchers investigated the effects of social media engagement and feedback among adolescents and young adults via three different experiments.
In the first of these, they analyzed Instagram posts from 7718 adolescents, approximately aged between 13 and 19 years old, and 8895 adults, approximately aged between 30 and 39 years old. Around 1, 724, 926 posts were included in the analysis. After examining the data, the researchers found that adolescents appeared to be more sensitive to social media feedback than adults, as suggested by their significantly higher learning rate from social media feedback.
In the second experiment, the researchers recruited 92 adolescents aged between 16 and 20 years old alongside 102 adult participants aged between 30 and 40 years old. All participants were to scroll a feed and post memes for which they would receive social feedback ie. likes. The researchers manipulated the number of likes per post; ‘high reward’ memes received between 28 and 34 likes, whereas ‘low reward memes’ received between 6 and 18. Participants reported their mood before the experiment, between high and low reward conditions, and after the experiment.
Ultimately, the researchers found that adolescents’ moods were more affected by decreasing numbers of likes for their posts than adults. Although both age groups reported positive feelings in the high-reward scenario, adolescents tended to conclude the experiment with a more negative mood, while adults reported a more positive mood. The findings suggest that adolescents are more emotionally affected by variations in social media feedback than adults- and that they experience more negative moods after receiving fewer likes.
In the third experiment, researchers analyzed historical social media data from 96 ‘emerging adults' aged 18 to 24 years old alongside neuroimaging data. Participants also filled in questionnaires reporting social anxiety and problematic social media behavior. The researchers ultimately found that sensitivity to social media feedback was linked to individual differences in subcortical-limbic brain volume.
“Given the growing concerns about the impact of social media on mental health, it is crucial that we further understand how young people engage with and respond to social media, while also addressing the unique aspects of their developmental stages.” said the first author of of the study, Ana da Silva Pinho of the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Amsterdam, in a press release.
Sources: Science Daily, Science Advances