The Impact Of Active And Passive Use Of Social Networking Sites On Working Memory

Social networking sites have gradually become an important platform for individuals to present themselves and share information(Hollenbaugh&Ferris,2014),and have a high prevalence rate among Chinese youth groups(China Internet Network Information Center,CNNIC,2019a),and due to the availability and convenience of smartphones(Ahn&Jung,2016;Jeong,Kim,Yum,&Hwang,2016;Wu,Cheung,Ku,&Hung,2013),a large number of teenagers use social networking sites through smartphones.Previous studies have shown that active and passive use of social networking sites have opposite effects on individuals' psychological development and social adaptation and so on.Active use of social networking sites have a positive impact on individuals(Kim&Lee,2011;Lin&Lu,2011;Xie,2014;Nadkami&Hofmann,2012;Toma&Hancock,2013;Yang,2014;Lian,Tian,Sun,&Zhang,2017),however,passive use of social networking sites bring obvious negative effects(Feinstein et al.,2013;Frison&Eggermont,2016;Tandoc,Ferrucci,&Duffy,2015;Verduyn et al.,2015;Lian,Yao,Sun,&Zhou,2018;Liu,Niu,Fan,&Zhou,2017;Sun et al.,2016;Zhang&Zhou,2018).According to the perspective of the Ecological Techno-subsystem Theory,network usages also have impacts on the cognitive development of individuals(Johnson&Puplampu,2008;Yang,Wang,&Zhu,2014).Executive function is the core of individual's advanced cognitive activities(Botvinick et al.,2001;Diamond,2013;Zhou,2004),and working memory plays an important role in all components of executive function(Zhao&Zhou,2010).In that way,what is the effect of active and passive use of social networking sites on working memory?Therefore,in the context of smartphone use,this study selects adolescent groups and uses a combination of questionnaires and behavioral experiments to investigate the differences in working memory between active and passive use of social networking sites among normal individuals.Specifically,there are two studies as follows:In the first study,the questionnaire method was used to investigate the proportion of the addictors of social networking sites among college students,the basic situation of active and passive use of social networking sites and their relationship with working memory in the daily life.The results showed that in the college students,13.32%of them are addicted to social networking sites.On the other hand,in non addicted groups,the overall use of social networking sites by individuals is mainly passive use and less active use.At the same time,there was a separation effect between active and passive social network use on working memory of college students,the level of active use of social networking sites significantly predicted the working memory level of individuals,while the level of passive use of social networking sites significantly predicted the working memory level of individuals.At the same time,the level of active use of social networking sites significantly positively predicts the level of one's working memory,while the level of passive use of social networking sites significantly negatively predicts the levels of working memory.In the second study,behavioral experiments were used to investigate the performance of individuals of active and passive use of social networking sites on 1/2/3-Back tasks of social networking sites related/unrelated types.It was found that the level of working memory of active social networking sites users is better than that of passive social networking sites users.And no matter in accuracy or response time,the performance of active social networking sites users and passive social networking sites users in social networking sites related types of N-Back tasks is better than that in traditional N-Back tasks.At the same time,when cognitive load increases,individuals'accuracy and response time of 1-Back tasks are better than that of 2-Back and 3-Back tasks,and the accuracy of 2-Back task is better than that of 3-Back task,but there is no significant difference in response time.Under the background of smart phone use,the study used a combination of questionnaire and experiment to investigate the influence of active and passive use of social networking sites on individuals' working memory,which is helpful to refine the influence of different types of social networking sites on individuals' advanced cognitive function,enriching and improving the existing theories and sudies of cyber psychology,and it also helps individuals to use social networking sites reasonably.