The impact of engagement with social networking sites (SNSs) on cognitive skills

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of social networking sites (SNSs) engagement on cognitive and social skills. We investigated the use of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in a group of young adults and tested their working memory, attentional skills, and reported levels of social connectedness. Results showed that certain activities in Facebook (such as checking friends’ status updates) and YouTube (telling a friend to watch a video) predicted working memory test performance. The findings also indicated that Active and Passive SNS users had qualitatively different profiles of attentional control. The Active SNS users were more accurate and had fewer misses of the target stimuli in the first block of trials. They also did not discriminate their attentional resources exclusively to the target stimuli and were less likely to ignore distractor stimuli. Their engagement with SNS appeared to be exploratory and they assigned similar weight to incoming streams of information. With respect to social connectedness, participants’ self-reports were significantly related to Facebook use, but not Twitter or YouTube use, possibly as the result of greater opportunity to share personal content in the former SNS.

► Some Facebook and YouTube activities predict working memory performance in adults.
► Active SNS users adopt an exploratory approach to incoming streams of information.
► Facebook use is associated with higher levels of social connectedness.