ArticleNature communications2021
A computational reward learning account of social media engagement.
Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 61 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
61 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Impact of health education on internet addiction, internet use time, and social media addiction in adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- Invoking self-related and social thoughts impacts online information sharing.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2023Trial
- Problematic social media use is associated with altered directed exploration under uncertainty.Addictive behaviors reports · 2026Article
- An effort recalibration framework for digital media use and cognition.Nature human behaviour · 2026Review
- Animal models relevant to digital technology-based disorders.Journal of behavioral addictions · 2026Article
- Article
- Disinformation elicits learning biases.eLife · 2026Article
- Meme-Based Packaging as Digital Cultural Translation: How Online Cultural Symbols Shape Purchase and Sharing Intentions.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- A computational model of reward learning and habits on social media.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Artificial Intelligence Discontinuation Effects (AI-DICE): An Emerging Phenomenon in Mental Health Applications.JMIR AI · 2026Article
- Theoretical mathematical modeling of compulsive social-media use for digital well-being: cumulative engagement and validation dynamics.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- User online reputation and anti-cyberbullying behavior on social media: the moderating role of online profile.BMC public health · 2026Article
- The Pursuit of Approval: Social Media Users' Decreased Posting Latency Following Online Exclusion as a Form of Acknowledgment-Seeking Behavior.Personality & social psychology bulletin · 2026Article
- Cognitive modeling of real-world behavior for understanding mental health.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2026Review
- Smartphone Use During School Hours and Association With Cognitive Control in Youths Aged 11 to 18 Years.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- The Body Knows What the Mind Does Not: Uncertainty Affects Physiological Markers of Deception.Psychophysiology · 2026Article
- Behaviour patterns on social media and their associations with cognitive, social and emotional skills in university students.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- The cultural ecology of social media.Evolutionary human sciences · 2026Article
- Social media exposure, school prevention, and adolescent vaping: a structural equation model-based secondary analysis of the Florida youth tobacco survey.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Aligning social media design with adolescent brain development: rationale and recommendations.Frontiers in digital health · 2026Article
1 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Social media has become a modern arena for human life, with billions of daily users worldwide. The intense popularity of social media is often attributed to a psychological need for social rewards (likes), portraying the online world as a Skinner Box for the modern human. Yet despite such portrayals, empirical evidence for social media engagement as reward-based behavior remains scant. Here, we apply a computational approach to directly test whether reward learning mechanisms contribute to social media behavior. We analyze over one million posts from over 4000 individuals on multiple social media platforms, using computational models based on reinforcement learning theory. Our results consistently show that human behavior on social media conforms qualitatively and quantitatively to the principles of reward learning. Specifically, social media users spaced their posts to maximize the average rate of accrued social rewards, in a manner subject to both the effort cost of posting and the opportunity cost of inaction. Results further reveal meaningful individual difference profiles in social reward learning on social media. Finally, an online experiment (n = 176), mimicking key aspects of social media, verifies that social rewards causally influence behavior as posited by our computational account. Together, these findings support a reward learning account of social media engagement and offer new insights into this emergent mode of modern human behavior.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.