Event-related potentials reveal enhanced processing of social media over monetary rewards

Since the first online social media platform, using social media has emerged as one of the defining behaviors of the new millennium. For most users such behavior is recreational. However, for some individuals, the use of social media may develop to problematic, compromising their physical, social and/or mental well-being. The present study aimed to investigate neural responses to positive and negative social media rewards, compared to the processing of gain and loss of monetary rewards. Participants performed computerized versions of the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) Task as well as the Social Media Incentive Delay (SMID) Task, adapted to incorporate social media feedback. Both tasks were performed during EEG recordings to analyze event-related potentials (ERPs) time-locked to both monetary and social media stimuli. The results revealed differences between the neural processing of the stimuli emerged in the cue-P3 and FRN time-windows, suggesting increased neural processing for social media-related stimuli compared to monetary rewards. These time-windows translate cognitive processes that appear fundamental for cognitive performance and behavior, such as motivated selective attention (cue-P3 time-window), as well as behavioral adjustment and decision-making after violation of expectations (FRN time-window).