The impact of negative online social network content on expressed sentiment, executive function, and working memory

Remembering in the Digital World: Autobiographical Memory in Social Media

The use of social media continues to increase in modern cultures in recent years. This new context leads to creating a virtual self, which somewhat differs from the real self. Further, social relations are set and maintained predominantly in this new context. There is no doubt that social media does not only affect individuals' social relations but also their cognitive skills by pulling them into new situations that they are unfamiliar with. In this new context, content coded in social media can be remembered in real life, and content coded in real life can be remembered in social media. This new context, where mostly real-life stories are shared, is likely to strongly affect the autobiographical memory processes of individuals. Past research suggests that social media affects autobiographical memory processes both directly (phenomenological characteristics, functions) and indirectly through cognitive processes (eg, attention, working memory, transitive memory). Studies about its indirect effects indicate that people with limited attention and working memory capacity have difficulty processing the high number of stimuli offered by social media. Given that the long-term memory capacity is not limited, it is plausible to expect that some of the contents are encoded into the memory; however, problems may occur in the storage and retrieval processes. Studies about the direct effect of social media show that the phenomenological characteristics (number of details, accuracy, emotional content) and functions (self, social, directing, therapeutic) of events experienced or shared on social media differ from real-life events. This theoretical review discusses the effects of social media use on cognitive processes related to memory processes and more specifically on the phenomenological and functional characteristics of autobiographical memory. To recognize and prevent potential psychological issues that may emerge in relation to this new setting, it appears essential to comprehend how social media affects autobiographical memory, which is essential for self-perception.

Impact of Using Social Media Networks on Individual Work-Related Outcomes

This paper aims to determine the effects of using social networks on work-related outcomes. Observed work-related outcomes are job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work performance. The moderating effects of gender and age of respondents on the given relations were also observed. In addition, this paper aims to consider the theoretical and practical implications of such research. The research was conducted in West Balkan countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. Respondents were employed in organizations in these countries and 313 complete questionnaires were collected. The number of social media networks and somewhat frequency of social media networks usage and the number of photos has a positive effect on individual outcomes of employed persons. Daily time usage, frequency of posting photos, number of groups, and number of groups (active participant) have negative effects on individual outcomes of employed persons. Prolonged use of social media networks (during the day) can especially reduce job satisfaction while joining a large number of groups severely jeopardizes organizational commitment. Active participation in a number of groups significantly reduces salary satisfaction and organizational loyalty among male employees. Excessive use of social media network sites and frequent posting of images can reduce satisfaction with the nature of work and work performance among older employees. The discovered connections and influences have scientific and practical significance, which is explained in the paper.

What threatens stock markets more - The coronavirus or the hype around it?

We use a linear regularized model with structural changes and found that the coronavirus pandemic had a direct and an indirect effect (via media hype) on stock markets. We reveal a correlation between internet search queries, discussions of the pandemic in the press and social media, and changes in stock market indices. We demonstrated that the effect of the pandemic coverage in digital and printed media and the effect of Google queries was comparable to, and sometimes even exceeded, the effect of the pandemic itself. We showed the effect of hype on the volume of Google queries and social media publications.

Cognitive functioning and social media: Has technology changed us?

Social media use and its effects on mood have been well researched. However, social media use and its effects on cognition are not as well known. Based on the research studies available, this study hypothesized that those categorized as participating in high social media use would have lower ability to effectively inhibit irrelevant information and higher ability for working memory. The 70 participants in this study were given a questionnaire to assess their level of social media use (low, average, high) and the Stroop and Corsi tests were used as measures of inhibition and working memory, respectively. One-way ANCOVAs were used to analyze the data and control for age, gender, race, and education, as these are common demographics that cognitive tests use to standardize and compare scores. The researchers were unable to find a significant relationship between social media use, working memory functioning, and ability to inhibit information. Limitations and future directions are discussed.