Schedule of Events | Symposia

Social media addiction impacts resting spontaneous cortical activity and relates to transdiagnostic mental health symptoms in adolescence

Poster Session D - Monday, March 31, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Nathan Petro^1,2 (nathan.petro.phd@gmail.com), Lauren Webert^1,2, Jake Son^1,2,3, Thomas Ward^1,2,4, Kellen McDonald^1,2,4, Danielle Rice^1,2, Grace Ende^1,2, Anna Coutant^1,2, Erica Steiner^1,2, Cooper Livermore^1,2, Mikki Schantell^1,2,3, Abraham Killanin^1,2,3, Giorgia Picci^1,2,4, Tony Wilson^1,2,4; ¹Institute for Human Neuroscience, Boys Town National Research Hospital, ²Center for Pediatric Brain Health, Boys Town National Research Hospital, ³College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, ⁴Department of Pharmacology & Neuroscience, Creighton University

Adolescence is a period of profound biopsychosocial development, where peer interactions shape neural reorganization. The dramatic increase in social media access has fundamentally changed social interactions among adolescent peers, creating an urgent need to understand its impact on development. One alarming trend is the rise of addiction-like behaviors on social media, where its use becomes uncontrolled, obsessive, and leads to neglect in other areas of life. This is made possible by the nature of social media, which enables peer-interactions to become ceaselessly accessible and thereby support addiction-like behaviors. Unfortunately, the neurobiological underpinnings of these addiction-like social media behaviors, and their unique relationship with mental health symptoms, are unknown. From 80 typical youths (8-16 years) we assessed mental health symptoms, spontaneous cortical activity based on magnetoencephalography, and self-reported addiction-like social media behaviors (e.g., “I use social media to reduce bad or upsetting feelings”). Controlling for age, sex, and overall social media use, higher addiction-like social media behaviors were related to stronger spontaneous delta in occipitotemporal cortices and theta in prefrontal cortices, as well as weaker spontaneous gamma in prefrontal cortices (all pfwe < .03). In addition, higher addiction-like social media behaviors were related to more severe symptoms of internalizing problems and inattention/hyperactivity (all ps < .05). In sum, developing addiction-like behaviors on social media portend increased risk for transdiagnostic mental health symptoms, and impact the functional activity within developmentally-relevant association cortices. These results point to the deleterious effects of constant access to social interaction and feedback during childhood and adolescence.

Topic Area: EMOTION & SOCIAL: Development & aging