title: The Emerging Neuroscience of Social Media.
abstract: Social media use is a global phenomenon, with almost two billion people worldwide regularly using these websites. As Internet access around the world increases, so will the number of social media users. Neuroscientists can capitalize on the ubiquity of social media use to gain novel insights about social cognitive processes and the neural systems that support them. This review outlines social motives that drive people to use social media, proposes neural systems supporting social media use, and describes approaches neuroscientists can use to conduct research with social media. We close by noting important directions and ethical considerations of future research with social media.
authors.affiliation: Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany. Electronic address: dar.meshi@fu-berlin.de.
authors.forename: Dar
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Meshi
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
authors.forename: Diana I
authors.initials: DI
authors.lastname: Tamir
authors.affiliation: Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Hauke R
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Heekeren
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009488:Neurosciences; D061108:Social Media
keywords: Facebook; neuroscience; self-referential cognition; social cognition; social media; social reward