The Power of the Like in Adolescence

Abstract

We investigated a unique way in which adolescent peer influence occurs on social media. We developed a novel fMRI paradigm to simulate the popular social photo-sharing tool Instagram, and measured adolescents’ behavioral and neural responses to “Likes,” a quantifiable form of social endorsement and potential source of peer influence. Adolescents underwent fMRI while viewing photographs ostensibly submitted to Instagram. Adolescents were more likely to Like photos depicted with many Likes and refrain from Liking photos with few Likes – indicating the influence of virtual peer endorsement, a finding that held for both neutral photos and photos of risky behaviors (e.g., drinking, smoking). Viewing photographs with many (vs. few) Likes was associated with greater activity in neural regions implicated in reward processing, social cognition, imitation, and attention. Furthermore, when adolescents viewed risky (vs. non-risky) photographs, activation in the cognitive control network decreased. These findings highlight possible mechanisms underlying peer influence during adolescence.

What the brain ‘Likes’: neural correlates of providing feedback on social media

“…In order to account for this confound, we accounted for the popularity of images in our model; thus, the Like > Next contrast represents brain responses related to this contrast over and above the effects of popularity. Similarly, results of our ‘Getting Likes’ contrast may in part reflect the neural correlates of giving Likes to ‘oneself’, since participants were more likely to select Like on their own photographs when these images appeared popular (Sherman et al , 2016, 2017), although they also frequently Liked their own unpopular images.…”

“…Participants gave written consent (or, for individuals under 18, written assent and parental consent), and were fully debriefed and compensated monetarily according to study procedures approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of California, Los Angeles. These participants have been previously reported upon (Sherman et al , 2016, 2017). …”

Transformation of Adolescent Peer Relations in the Social Media Context: Part 2—Application to Peer Group Processes and Future Directions for Research

“…Given the challenges of self-report data in regard to social media use, a number of other methods should be employed as well, with preliminary work showing promise in the use of novel methods, such as observational coding of adolescent social media pages (e.g., Moreno et al 2012; Underwood et al 2013), ecological momentary assessment (e.g., Jelenchick et al 2013), media diaries (e.g., Gross 2004), and guided “tours” of social media pages (e.g., Salimkhan et al 2010). In addition, the application of fMRI techniques to examining adolescent social media use will add a level of complexity and greater nuance to our understanding of these processes, as has been shown in preliminary work (e.g., Sherman et al 2016). Measures of physiological activity, including heart rate and blood pressure, have also recently been applied to examining adults’ experiences of stress when separated from their cell phones (Clayton et al 2015); similar measures may provide insight into adolescents’ physiological response to social media.…”

“…Insight into the mechanisms by which this may occur is found in the first study to apply an fMRI paradigm to adolescent social media use. Through a simulation of the social media site Instagram, Sherman et al (2016) found that when adolescents viewed photographs with higher numbers of likes, they were influenced to “like” those photographs as well. When viewing photographs with more likes, compared to fewer likes, adolescents showed greater activation in the precuneus, medial prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus, which are areas relevant to social cognition and social memories, as well as the inferior frontal gyrus, which is important for imitation.…”

The Living Hand of the Past: The Role of Technology in Development

“…They are of special interest because these same areas are often implicated in addictive behaviors (Meshi, Tamir, & Heekeren, 2015). Sherman, Payton, Hernandez, Greenfield, & Dapretto (2016) studied adolescent peer influence by simulating the social photo-sharing platform Instagram. They measured adolescents' behavioral and neural responses to "likes" while they were undergoing fMRI and simultaneously viewing photographs they believed had been submitted to Instagram.…”