Eye-tracking to assess social anxiety-related attentional biases and behaviours on social media likes and comments

Within the growing body of social media research, research has shown that young people with higher levels of social anxiety may use social media differently, though much of this evidence relies on self-report and cross-sectional designs. This experimental study used eye-tracking with adolescents and emerging adults (N=105)on a simulated social media site to examine cognitive attention biases to online social information (e.g., likes and comments)as potential mechanisms linking social anxiety and social media use. Results showed that in emerging adults (18-25 years), higher levels of social anxiety predicted increased attention to the number of likes and comments on a social media post. Among adolescents (13-17 years), these attention differences were not found, though behavioural differences were observed for social media interactions for those with higher levels of social anxiety. These findings suggest that developmental differences in cognitive biases associated with social anxiety are also evident in online contexts, with implications for identifying cognitive mechanisms underlying social media use.