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

对大部分人口来说，使用Facebook或Instagram等社交媒体已成为日常生活的基本组成部分。因此，研究这项技术对我们生活的影响是很重要的。过度使用社交媒体在大众媒体和公众讨论中通常被称为“成瘾“。然而，许多心理学家警告说，将日常行为医学化是危险的。目前的博士项目将应用来自物质成瘾文献的基于奖励的模型（Berridge &罗宾逊，2016）来调查过度使用社交媒体是否会显示某些个体成瘾的神经认知特征。该项目将利用已建立的实验范式，以评估注意偏向奖励，接近动机，并通过不同的测量方式（自我报告，内隐行为，心理生理和神经），在多个层次上响应社会媒体刺激的奖励线索反应。最近的综述也强调了对“行为成瘾”背后的动机和功能进行更多定性测量的必要性（Kardefelt-Winther等人，2017年）。因此，通过整合经验和隐性奖励措施，本项目旨在建立过度使用社交媒体背后的主观和客观激励。这不仅将帮助我们避免过度/不足的病理性日常生活活动，这些发现也可能对发展更有效的预防和干预策略具有重大意义，当这些活动具有有害后果时。

For large parts of the population the use of social media, such as Facebookor Instagram, has become an elemental part of the daily routine. It is thusimportant that research investigates the impact that this technology has onour lives. Excessive social media usage is often referred to as an "addiction"in mass media outlets and public discussion. However, many psychologistshave warned about the perils of medicalising everyday behaviours. Thepresent PhD project will apply reward-based models derived from thesubstance addiction literature (Berridge & Robinson, 2016) to investigatewhether excessive social media use displays the neurocognitivecharacteristics of an addiction in some individuals. The project will utiliseestablished experimental paradigms to assess attentional bias to reward,approach motivation, and reward cue reactivity in response to social mediastimuli at multiple levels and through different measurement modalities (selfreports,implicit behavioural, psychophysiological and neural). Recentreviews also highlight the need for more qualitative measures of the motivesand functions underlying 'behavioural addictions' (Kardefelt-Winther et al.,2017). Thus, by integrating both experiential and implicit measures ofreward, the present project aims to establish subjective and objectiveincentives behind excessive social media usage. Not only will this help us toavoid over/under-pathologising daily life activities, the findings may alsohave substantial implications for the development of more efficaciousprevention and intervention strategies when those activities have harmfulconsequences.