Social Media Desire and Impulsiveness: Intensified by Self-Immersion, Reduced by Mindfulness

Two laboratory experiments with undergraduates examined how social media desire emerges, intensifies, and can be altered. At the start of the experiment, participants submitted a Facebook status update and were led to believe that this would be posted and that responses to it would be monitored and logged over the course of the experiment. Desire to check Facebook increased following a subsequent 15-minute waiting period where participants heard sounds notifying them of friends responding to their status update, but they were not allowed to check the notifications. Moreover, reward simulations—mental elaborations about the positive aspects of checking social media—during the waiting period strengthened this desire. Both experiments also contrasted a group of participants who engaged in either a brief mindfulness, self-immersion, or, in Study 1, unfocused attention exercise during the 15-minute waiting period. Following the exercise, participants then adopted this new perspective while viewing and rating a Facebook advertisement (Study 1), or while performing a self-control task that allowed them to switch between practicing math skills or watching entertaining videos (Study 2). Participants in the mindfulness condition reported significantly less Facebook desire compared with participants in control conditions. Moreover, mindfulness led participants to report less positive attitudes about the Facebook advertisement (Study 1) and spend more time spent practicing math, as opposed to watching entertaining videos (Study 2). Reductions in reward simulations mediated these effects. These findings advance theoretical understanding of how social media desire unfolds and suggest ways for helping young adults manage these desires.