Origins And Outcomes Of Smartphone And Social Media Habits Across Development Supplement

Temple Univ Of The Commonwealth, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

Supplemental Proposal Abstract to: “Origins and Outcomes of Smartphone and Social Media Habits Across Development” This proposal is a diversity supplement that seeks to extend the objectives of the parent project (Chein, R01 HD098097) by recruiting participants from the original developmental cohorts during the period between longitudinal Waves 1 and 2 to investigate how digital media habits, goal states, and social sensitivity may interact to shape memory for recently experienced events. The ubiquity of smartphone and social media use in kids’ and teens’ lives has made it crucial to understand the impacts that these habits may have on subsequent development and in particular, how these habits shape memory systems. Critically, this work will address important limitations in prior research surrounding the impact of digital media use on subsequent memory, which has too often been atheoretical and offers mixed conclusions about how engaging in digital media use during an experience can subsequently affect memory for the experienced events. The proposed study will be the first to apply current memory-based theories of hippocampal-mesolimbic functioning to the digital media domain, and in so doing, will provide a novel window into how digital media use shapes memory at different periods of development. Across both aims of the present proposal, an extensive battery of indices acquired from the parent project relating to habitual patterns of digital media engagement and social sensitivity will be leveraged to predict episodic memory performance. Using a within-subject design, participants from each cohort (ages 8-10, 13-15, and 18-20) will be imbued with different learning goals as they view a series of news segment videos. Memory for the videos will be assessed as a function of goal states, digital media habits, and social sensitivity. The outcomes of the proposed project will be interpreted through the lens of memory-based theories to provide key insights into how the intensified presence of digital media in everyday life affects memory across development.