A Multi-Modal Investigation of Reward-Based Mechanisms Underlying Excessive Social Media Usage

For large parts of the population the use of social media, such as Facebook
or Instagram, has become an elemental part of the daily routine. It is thus
important that research investigates the impact that this technology has on
our lives. Excessive social media usage is often referred to as an "addiction"
in mass media outlets and public discussion. However, many psychologists
have warned about the perils of medicalising everyday behaviours. The
present PhD project will apply reward-based models derived from the
substance addiction literature (Berridge & Robinson, 2016) to investigate
whether excessive social media use displays the neurocognitive
characteristics of an addiction in some individuals. The project will utilise
established experimental paradigms to assess attentional bias to reward,
approach motivation, and reward cue reactivity in response to social media
stimuli at multiple levels and through different measurement modalities (selfreports,
implicit behavioural, psychophysiological and neural). Recent
reviews also highlight the need for more qualitative measures of the motives
and functions underlying 'behavioural addictions' (Kardefelt-Winther et al.,
2017). Thus, by integrating both experiential and implicit measures of
reward, the present project aims to establish subjective and objective
incentives behind excessive social media usage. Not only will this help us to
avoid over/under-pathologising daily life activities, the findings may also
have substantial implications for the development of more efficacious
prevention and intervention strategies when those activities have harmful
consequences.