Young people today are growing up in a social media-saturated world where technology plays a central role in shaping most of their experiences. And the rapid rise of social media use has consequently created parental and societal fears about young people's social and psychological well-being. Now, for the first time, a team of researchers led by the University of Amsterdam has used real social media data to show that young people may indeed be more sensitive to social media feedback (likes) than adults, and that this directly impacts their engagement and their mood.
Their results were published on 23 October in the journal Science Advances. One of the fears surrounding social media is that it could provoke anxiety in young people by driving them to keep using the apps more than they want to so they can gather more and more likes . Team member Wouter van den Bos: 'Adolescence is a developmental period during which both reward and rejection sensitivity are particularly strong, and these have, respectively, been linked to increased impulsive behaviour and depressive symptoms.
' Crucial period in our lives The researchers used a three-pronged approach to exam the issue. First, they looked at a large dataset of real-life Instagram posts, and used a computational model to capture the sensitivity to likes. Second came an experimental study, which mimicked the features of social media platforms and could be used to track changes in mood.
Finally, an exploratory neuroimaging study show.
