SOCIAL MEDIA AND

COGNITION
3rd semester work-based assignment
 CONTENT
SL NO: TITLE PAGE NO:
1 ABSTRACT 2
2 INTRODUCTION 3
3 AIM 4
MATERIALS
4 4
REQUIRED
PLAN OF THE
5 4
EXPERIMENT
6 PROCEDURE 5
7 OBSERVATION 7
8 RESULT 9
9 DISCUSSION 10
10 CONCLUSION 12
11 REFERENCE 13

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 ABSTRACT

This paper aims to study the effects of social media use on cognitive functions
mainly attention, working memory, short term memory. The study uses
quantitative methods using data from a sample of 10 individuals which consists
of 5 males and 5 females. The findings were analysed based on the data
extracted from the experiments. The results revealed that social media has a
positive impact on cognition. Additional research should be done to understand
the role of social media on cognition.

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 INTRODUCTION

The growth rate of internet specifically social media networks has extensively
become popular. The term social media has different connotations in the
literation. Some researches defined it as “socially interactive technologies” for
example; instant messaging or text messaging, or other networks which offer
fast paced, inexpensive online communication which allows social interaction to
start and evolve (Bryan et.al,2006). Social media is a computer-based
technology that facilities the sharing of ideas, thoughts and information through
the building of virtual networks and communities. By design, social media is
internet based and gives users quick electronic communication of content.
Cognition is a term referring to the mental processes involved in gaining
knowledge and comprehension. These cognitive processes include thinking,
knowing, remembering, judging and problem solving. Two main types of
cognitive processes include attention (allows people to focus on a specific
stimulus in the environment), memory (allows people to encode, store, and
retrieve information).
Social media may favour and harm, at the same time our cognitive aspects. Our
brain requires constant stimulation and social media can have the ability to
satisfy our curiosity and provide emotional support. Psychological research has
shown that the so-called pleasure centres in the brain is engaged in the use of
social media, the same ones that provide us with a sense of comfort that we
usually associate with food, sex, money and social acceptance. Numerous
studies on the impact of media have underlined both their positive and negative
outcomes.

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 AIM
To study how social media affects cognition

MATERIALS REQUIRED

1. Data cancellation sheets

2. Writing materials
3. Stop watch
4. Three lists of digits starting from two-digit number to nine-digit number
prepared by the experimenter
5. 1 list of trigrams (each list consists of 10 trigrams of 3 letters each)

PLAN OF THE EXPERIMENT

1) To study the aspect of attention

To study the effect of extraneous or irrelevant stimuli on the efficiency of work.
Ask the participant to cancel the digits 1, 3, 5 during with and without
distraction conditions. Asses the quality and quantity of work by counting the
wrong cancellations, correct cancellations and missed ones.
2) To find out the working memory of the participant
Ask the participant to repeat the numbers in 3 lists said to him/her in the same
order.
3) To find out the short-term memory of the participant
Ask the participant to recall trigrams such as TGH, CLS after an interval of 15
seconds.

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 PROCEDURE
1) To study the aspect of attention
Seat the participant comfortably near a table and establish a good rapport. The
digit cancellation sheet is given to the participant and instruct him/her as
follows “when I say ready start cancelling the digits 1, 3 & 5 in the given list.
When you finish the first line proceed on with the next line from the left side
and try to cancel 1, 3 & 5 as rapidly and accurately as possible. You will be
penalised for every wrong answer cancellation and omission. When I say stop,
you can stop cancelling the digits”.
Give a practice list trial cancelling 1,3 & 5 of the first line. Conduct the
experiment in four parts following ABBA sequence.
Part 1; without distraction
Ask the participant to cancel 1, 3 & 5 digits as fast as he or she can for two
minutes. The experimenter should take care to avoid all the extraneous
distractions.
Part 2; with distraction
In this part of the experiment, the experimenter must introduce distractions such
as tapping loudly on the table, talking irrelevant things and so on. In this
distraction condition ask the participant to cancel 1,3 & 5 digits for 2 minutes.
Part 3; with distraction
Ask the participant to cancel digits 1,3 &5 as fast as he/she can for 2 minutes
under distraction atmosphere. In short, the procedure in part 2 is repeated.
Part 4; without distraction
The procedure in part 1 is repeated once more to follow the counter balancing
design.
The numbers 1, 3 & 5 cancelled by the participant in different parts of the
experiment are counted separately and noted down as positive scores. Double of

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every missed and incorrectly marked digits act as negative scores. The final
scores of the efficiency can be calculated by taking the difference between
positive and negative scores.
2) To study the aspect of working memory
Seat the participant comfortably. Instruct as follows “I will say some numbers to
you, when I have finished, you have to repeat the numbers in the same order.
Listen to them carefully as numbers will be called out only once”.
Starting from two-digit numbers proceed in an ascending order. Call out all the
two-digit series, if the participant succeeds in response to all the three lists,
proceed on to the three-digit series and so on. Continue the procedure until the
participant fails in all the three lists of the series.
Recite the numbers at the rate of one digit per second without grouping or
fluctuating in pitch. In scoring allow a credit of 1/3 points for every perfectly
recited list.
3) To study the aspect of short-term memory
The participant is seated comfortably and a good rapport is established and the
following instructions are given “ I shall read out 3 letters and 3 digits number
and you have to repeat the number, and continue counting backwards by 3s until
I ask you to stop, after I say stop you have to tell me the 3 letters that I have
read out in the beginning”. An interval of 15 seconds was given to the
participants
The participant is given a practice trial with a retention interval of 1s. the scores
are then recorded.

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 OBSERVATION
TABLE 1: High Social Media Users and Low Social Media Users
HIGH SOCIAL MEDIA USERS LOW SOCIAL MEDIA USERS
NAME HOURS SPENT NAME HOURS SPENT
SH 5 SU 1
SR 4 PR 1
DH 4 AJ 2
GO 4 BA 2
KE 4 AN 2

TABLE 2: Scores of Participants With and Without Distraction

Condition
HIGH SOCIAL MEDIA USERS LOW SOCIAL MEDIA USERS
WITH WITHOUT WITH WITHOUT
161 179 164 179
235 254 272 289
272 282 204 223
261 306 218 241
217 247 216 220
= 229.2 =253.6 =214.8 =230.4

TABLE 3: Scores of Participants for Working Memory

HIGH SOCIAL MEDIA USERS LOW SOCIAL MEDIA USERS
NAME SCORE NAME SCORE
SH 5.3 SU 2.6
SR 6.7 PR 7.2
DH 4 AJ 5.2
GO 5.4 BA 0

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 KE 4.9 AN 5.2
=5.26 =5

TABLE 4: Scores of Participant for Short Term Memory

HIGH SOCIAL MEDIA USERS LOW SOCIAL MEDIA USERS
NAME SCORE NAME SCORE
SH 8 SU 4
SR 9 PR 7
DH 7 AJ 7
GO 6 BA 0
KE 9 AN 6
=7.8 =6

TABLE 5.1: Scores of Participants Based on Age (Below 30)

BELOW 30
NAME ATTENTION WORKING SHORT TERM
MEMORY MEMORY
SH 179 5.3 8
SR 254 6.7 9
GO 306 5.4 6
KE 247 4.9 9
AN 220 5.2 6
=241.2 =5.5 =7.6

TABLE 5.2: Scores of Participants Based on Age (Above 30)

ABOVE 30
NAME ATTENTION WORKING SHORT TERM
MEMORY MEMORY
DH 282 4 7
SU 179 2.6 4
PR 289 7.2 7

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AJ 223 5.2 7
BA 241 3.6 0
=242.5 =4.52 =6.52

RESULT

To determine the impact of social media on cognition, participants were

classified into high and low social media users. High social media users
achieved better results in short term memory, working memory and attention.

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 DISCUSSION
The aim of the study is to know how social media affects cognition. It was
found that social media users had better short-term memory, working
memory, and attention in comparison to the people who didn’t use social
media so frequently.
Table 1 shows how much hours the participant spends on social media. 1-3
hrs were qualified has people who use social media frequently has better
attention capability than people who uses social media not so frequently.
In table 2 we can see that the average of working memory of high social
media users is greater than the low social media users. Average of working
memory of high social media users is 5.26. Average of working memory of
low social media users is 5. Working memory is a cognitive system with a
limited capacity that can hold information temporarily. It is important for
reasoning and the guidance of decision making and behaviour. The
phonological loop is the part of working memory that deals with spoken and
written material. The phonological loop (linked to speech perception) is a
component of working memory model that deals with spoken and written
material. It is sub divided into the phonological store and the articular
process.
1. Phonological store (inner ear) processes speech perception, and stores
spoken words we hear for 1 -2 seconds.
2. Articulatory control process (inner voice) processes speech production,
and rehearses and stores verbal information from the phonological store.
Here in this experiment as the participants were told to memorize the
numbers first 3 sets of 2 numbers then 3 sets of 3 numbers and so on, the
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 high social media users were able to memorize better. They were able to
control processes these numbers and store it. The articulatory control process
was able to rehearse it and say it back to the experiment.
Maybe the participants who use fewer social media failed to store the
numbers and thus was not able to reproduce it. If an individual has high
motor excitability which means excitability of neurons in the pre frontal
cortex of the brain- you are better equipped to memorize numbers. Humans
with a high motor excitability have a better working memory than humans
with low motor excitability.
In table 3 we can see that the average of short-term memory of high social
media users is greater than low social media users. Average of short-term
memory of high social media users is 7.8. average of short-term memory of
low social media users is 6. Here the participants were asked to repeat the
trigrams back to the participant after 15 seconds. Here the high social media
users must have put a rhythm to the trigrams to remember the letters better.
Short term memory also known as primary or active memory is the
information, we are currently aware of or thinking about. Psychologist
George Miller suggests that people can store between 5 and 9 items (7+- 2,
which miller described as the ‘magical number’) in short term memory. It is
already available for a short period of time. The individuals who use social
media less frequently may have been disturbed by outside interference and
therefore was not able to recall. The individuals who use social media more
frequently may have used elaborative rehearsal that is creating associations
and connections between something significant to the person memorizing
and the item to be memorized.
Age is also a factor which affects memory. In this experiment 5 participants
below 30 and 5 participants above 30. The attention of the participant above
30 was found to be greater. The attention of the participant above 30 was
found to be 242.8. the attention of the participant below 30 was found to be
241.2. the average of working memory of participants above 30 was found to
be 4.52 which is lesser than the average of working memory of the
participants below 30 which was found to be 5.5. the average of short-term
memory of participants above 30 was found to be 6.25 which is lesser than
the average of short-term memory of participants below 30 which was found
to be 7.6. thus, individuals who are younger have better working memory
and short-term memory.

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 CONCLUSION

Social media affects cognition. The results that we found were opposite to
what was found in the existing studies. Additional investigation is warranted
to understand the role social media has on cognition.

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 REFERENCE
1) https://www.mentalhelp.net/blogs/is-the-internet-stealing-your-memory/
2) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wps.20617
3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5403814/
4) https://www.simplypsychology.org/petersonpeterson.html#:~:text=Conclu
sion,Conclusion,seconds)%20when%20rehearsal%20is%20prevented.&t
ext=If%20a%20person%20is%20not,their%20long-term%20memory%2
0store.
5) https://www.thewealthadvisor.com/article/using-social-media-daily-could
-affect-brain-and-cognitive-skills
6) https://www.atreef.com/the-effects-of-social-media-in-2018/

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