Externalizing autobiographical memories in the digital age

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.

Sensory emotion regulation

Decades of evidence reveal intimate links between sensation and emotion. Yet, discussion of sensory experiences as tools that promote emotion regulation is largely absent from current theorizing on this topic. Here, we address this gap by integrating evidence from social-personality, clinical, cognitive-neuroscience, and animal research to highlight the role of sensation as a tool that can be harnessed to up- or downregulate emotion. Further, we review evidence implicating sensation as a rapid and relatively effortless emotion regulation modality and highlight future research directions. Notably, we emphasize the need to examine the duration of sensory emotion regulation effects, the moderating role of individual and cultural differences, and how sensory strategies interact with other strategies.

Self-Continuity

Self-continuity is the subjective sense of connection between one's past and present selves (past-present self-continuity), between one's present and future selves (present-future self-continuity), or among one's past, present, and future selves (global self-continuity). We consider the motivational character of the three forms of self-continuity, their regulatory properties, and the internal or external factors that consolidate them. We also review their consequences for attitudes and judgments or decisions, motivation, intentions and behavior, and psychological and physical health. We further detail the psychological and behavioral benefits of self-discontinuity (i.e., a sense of disconnect among temporal selves). We next turn to the brain regions that are activated synchronously with self-continuity. We consider developmental perspectives on self-continuity, discuss collective self-continuity (along with its consequences and regulatory properties), and elaborate on cultural differences in self-continuity. This inaugural Annual Reviews chapter demonstrates the breadth, excitement, and sense of synergy among self-continuity researchers and points to promising research directions.