Digital Brains: Social Media, Attention, and Plasticity in Emerging Adults

Description

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21336471

Sukhkamalpreet Kaur¹ and Komila Parthi² (Department of Psychology, Amity University (Online) Rajasthan¹ and
PG Department of Psychology, DAV College, Sector 10, Chandigarh²)

As social media and media multitasking become the new norm in this digital age, particularly among emerging adults (18-25), concerns about their cognitive and psychological effects have also increased significantly. The study examined the relationships between social media addiction, media multitasking, attentional control, cognitive flexibility and resilience in a sample of 120 emerging Indian adults (60 males, 60 females). To run correlational and regression analyses, validated self-report measures like Media Multitasking Revised Scale (MMT-R; Lopez et al., 2018), Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS; Andreassen et al., 2016), Attentional Control Scale (ACS; Derryberry & Reed, 2002), Cognitive Flexibility Inventory (CFI; Dennis & Vander Wal, 2010), and Brief Resilience Scale (BRS; Smith et al., 2008) were used. Higher levels of social media addiction and media multitasking were related to lower levels of attentional control, cognitive flexibility, and resilience. Attentional control emerged as a strong positive predictor for cognitive flexibility and served as a safety factor for various cognitive outcomes. The findings provide culturally relevant empirical information to growing research on media and cognitive abilities among emerging adults in India, which has implications for digital culture and mental health interventions.