Psychophysiological effects of social feedback during social media use

Nunes, Lorena

Student Work

Psychophysiological effects of social feedback during social media use

Public Deposited

In recent years, rates of depression, anxiety, and other indices of poor mental health have increased dramatically among adolescents and young adults. Some research suggests that social media use has contributed to this mental health crisis, but few studies have examined psychological mechanisms that may underlie effects of social media on mental health, especially effects on anxiety levels tied to social evaluation on social media. Thus, the aim of the present study was to test whether there is a psychophysiological stress response to social feedback, as experienced on a social media platform. College aged students in the WPI community were recruited to participate in a two-part study in which they were first prompted to create captions for various images and memes that would later be used as mock social media posts—as part of a presumably new social media platform designed for WPI students (Part 1). Next, for Part 2, participants came into the lab and completed a PsychoPy task in which they were exposed to positive and negative feedback on the mock posts and captions they provided in Part 1, while having their heart rate and heart rate variability measured via an armband heart monitoring device. Throughout the task participants also reported how positively or negatively they felt after receiving different kinds of feedback. Findings revealed that the valence of the feedback mattered most when it came to participants’ affect ratings, with individuals scoring high on Need to Belong (NTB), approval-related Contingent Self-Worth on Instagram (IGCSW), and Social Anxiety (SA) most sensitive to positive/negative feedback. Moreover, there was a psychophysiological stress response marked by lower heart rate variability when participants high on IGCSW received low likes and negative feedback. These findings suggest that interactions on social media can begin to be considered a social evaluative threat. Replication studies should be conducted to confirm validity of results.

This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

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