Tag: Social media

Motivations for Active and Passive Social Media Use and Their Relation to Wellbeing

Featured Database

Author: Seidman, Gwendolyn; Hudak, Lauren M.; Langlais, Michael Description: The present research examined if active and passive social media uses are determined by different motivations and the extent to which these uses and motivations predict wellbeing. Two online surveys (total N = 480), one using a sample of adults and the other using an undergraduate sample, showed that active use has two components: self-presentational and other-oriented. In both studies, active self-presentational use was primarily motivated by attention seeking, whereas boredom and fear of missing out (FoMO) were the main motivators…

See more and a link to full text

Pausing to consider why a headline is true or false can help reduce the sharing of false news

Featured Database

Author: Fazio, Lisa Description: In an online experiment, participants who paused to explain why a headline was true or false indicated that they were less likely to share false information compared to control participants. Their intention to share accurate news stories was unchanged. These results indicate that adding “friction” (i.e., pausing to think) before sharing can improve the quality of information shared on social media.  Subject headings: Disinformation; Fake news; Psychology; Social media Publication year: 2020 Journal or book title: Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Find…

See more and a link to full text

The impact of digital technology, social media, and artificial intelligence on cognitive functions: a review

Featured Database

Author: Shanmugasundaram, Mathura; Tamilarasu, Arunkumar Description: In our modern society, digital devices, social media platforms, and artificial intelligence (AI) tools have become integral components of our daily lives, profoundly intertwined with our daily activities. These technologies have undoubtedly brought convenience, connectivity, and speed, making our lives easier and more efficient. However, their influence on our brain function and cognitive abilities cannot be ignored. This review aims to explore both the positive and negative impacts of these technologies on crucial cognitive functions, including attention, memory, addiction, novelty-seeking and perception, decision-making, and…

See more and a link to full text

People are increasingly bored in our digital age

Featured Database

Author: Tam, Katy Y. Y.; Inzlicht, Michael Description: In an era where entertainment is effortlessly at our fingertips, one would assume that people are less bored than ever. Yet, reports of boredom are higher now than compared to the past. This rising trend is concerning because chronic boredom can undermine well-being, learning, and behaviour. Understanding why this is happening is crucial to prevent further negative impacts. In this Perspective, we explore one possible reason-digital media use makes people more bored. We propose that digital media increases boredom through dividing attention,…

See more and a link to full text

Doomscrolling evokes existential anxiety and fosters pessimism about human nature? Evidence from Iran and the United States

Featured Database

Author: Shabahang, Reza; Hwang, Hyeyeon; Thomas, Emma F.; Aruguete, Mara S.; McCutcheon, Lynn E.; Orosz, Gabor; Hossein Khanzadeh, Abbas Ali; Mokhtari Chirani, Benyamin; Zsila, Agnes Description: The media’s adherence to “if it bleeds, it leads” has resulted in global dominance of negative news (e.g., stories of corruption, fraud, shootings, terrorism, and war). The appetite for negative news is fueled by negativity bias, which compels people to prioritize negative over positive stories. This cross-cultural study, inspired by media effect theories such as Cultivation Theory, explored the links between problematic consumption of…

See more and a link to full text

A consensus statement on potential negative impacts of smartphone and social media use on adolescent mental health

Featured Database

Author: Capraro, V., Globig, L., Rausch, Z., Rathje, S., Wormley, A. S., Olson, J., et al. Description: The impact of smartphones and social media use on adolescent mental health remains widely debated. To clarify expert opinion, we convened over 120 international researchers from 11 disciplines, representing a broad range of views. Using a Delphi method, the panel evaluated 26 claims covering international trends in adolescent mental health, causal links to smartphones and social media, and policy recommendations. The experts suggested 1,400 references and produced a consensus statement for each claim….

See more and a link to full text

Female Users’ TikTok Use and Body Image: Active Versus Passive Use and Social Comparison Processes

Student Database

Author: Pan, Wenjing; Mu, Zhe; Zhao, Zexuan; Tang, Zheng Description: This study examined two ways of using the TikTok application (active vs. passive use), and their association with female users’ self-esteem pertaining to appearance and weight. By adopting a cross-sectional online survey design, this study recruited 7,750 adult female TikTok users from China (Douyin), and acquired self-reported data on 2 ways of using TikTok, state-level social comparison, appearance-esteem, weight-esteem, body mass index, and age. The results indicated that passive and active TikTok uses were negatively and positively associated with participants’…

See more and a link to full text

Weaponized health communication: Twitter bots and Russian trolls amplify the vaccine debate

Featured Database

Author: Broniatowski, D. A.; Jamison, A. M.; Qi, S.; AlKulaib, L.; Chen, T.; Benton, A.; Quinn, S. C. & Dredze, M. Description: To understand how Twitter bots and trolls (“bots”) promote online health content. We compared bots’ to average users’ rates of vaccine-relevant messages, which we collected online from July 2014 through September 2017. We estimated the likelihood that users were bots, comparing proportions of polarized and antivaccine tweets across user types. We conducted a content analysis of a Twitter hashtag associated with Russian troll activity. Compared with average users,…

See more and a link to full text

Why do people spread false information online? The effects of message and viewer characteristics on self-reported likelihood of sharing social media disinformation

Featured Database

Author: Buchanan, T. Description: Individuals who encounter false information on social media may actively spread it further, by sharing or otherwise engaging with it. Much of the spread of disinformation can thus be attributed to human action. Four studies (total N = 2,634) explored the effect of message attributes (authoritativeness of source, consensus indicators), viewer characteristics (digital literacy, personality, and demographic variables) and their interaction (consistency between message and recipient beliefs) on self-reported likelihood of spreading examples of disinformation. Participants also reported whether they had shared real-world disinformation in the…

See more and a link to full text

Fighting misinformation on social media using crowdsourced judgments of news source quality

Featured Database

Author: Pennycook, G. & Rand, D. G. Description: Reducing the spread of misinformation, especially on social media, is a major challenge. We investigate one potential approach: having social media platform algorithms preferentially display content from news sources that users rate as trustworthy. To do so, we ask whether crowdsourced trust ratings can effectively differentiate more versus less reliable sources. We ran two preregistered experiments ( = 1,010 from Mechanical Turk and = 970 from Lucid) where individuals rated familiarity with, and trust in, 60 news sources from three categories: (…

See more and a link to full text
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.