Attention control moderates the relationship between social media use and psychological distress

Research has suggested a potential link between social media use and psychological distress, though findings have been somewhat inconsistent. Importantly, relatively few studies have examined potential moderators of this relationship, and the majority have relied upon self-report social media use. The present study examined the potential moderating role of attention control, in the relationship between social media use and anxiety and employed an objective measure of social media use via smartphone data.

Social media use was captured via participants smartphones over a one-week period. Inhibitory attention control was assessed via antisaccade task performance. In addition to a measure of psychological distress that was completed by participants (final n = 69, female = 35, male = 31, did not specify = 3).

Attention control, as indexed via total antisaccade accuracy, moderated the relationship between social media use and psychological distress. This relationship was such that those with lower levels of attention control showed a significant positive relationship between social media use and psychological distress, whereas no relationship was observed among those with average or high attention control.

While capturing objective mobile social media data, future research could also benefit from incorporating usage data from computers and other devices.

The findings of this study highlight a potential important factor that may alter the impact of social media use on emotional wellbeing. One possible implication of this finding is that heavy social media use may have problematic mental health consequences specifically for those who experience difficulties with attention control.