Impact of social media use on executive function

Associations between digital dependency and cognition have not received the same attention as emotional and effects, and an area of importance in this regard is Executive Functioning (EF) as there are theoretical debates regrading whether impulse control is a key aspect of functioning for digital dependency. Three experiments examined associations between social media addiction (SMA) and everyday memory (Experiment 1), EF tasks using neutral stimuli before and after social media exposure (Experiments 1 and 2), and deficits in impulse control using social media related and neutral cues (Experiment 3). Experiments1 and 2 demonstrated a relationship between SMA and inhibitory control, as measured by the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), but less strong associations with attention and attention switching tasks. Experiment 3 demonstrated a relationship between SMA and higher impulsivity using the Go-GoNo task. These relationships were either exacerbated by exposure to social media (Experiment 2), or stronger when performance involved social media related stimuli (Experiment 3). These results are novel as there is very limited evidence relating EF functioning to social media dependency, and they imply a link between SMA and impaired impulse control on exposure to social media related cues.