Cognitive Implications of Engaging With “Fitspiration” Content on Social Media

Abstract

Social media is a routine part of every-day life for millions of people worldwide. How does engaging with social media shape enduring memories for that experience? This question is important given the popularity of certain types of content on social media platforms, such as content widely known as “fitspiration”. Two experiments involving 510 US adults (mean age = 36.82) examined memory for food and fitness-related social media images that individuals write comments about, as well as memory for other images in the context. We demonstrate that commenting on social media images boosts memory for them and weakly affects memory for conceptually related images in the same context. Exploratory analyses revealed correlations between self-reported disordered eating symptomology and effects of commenting on memory. These findings demonstrate that how people engage with social media has implications for the enduring memories of that content and may relate to behaviors and attitudes in offline lives, such as eating and body image.