Foodie: Implications of Interacting with Social Media for Memory Jordan Zimmerman and Sarah Brown-Schmidt*
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Zimmerman and Brown-Schmidt Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications Cognitive Research: Principles (2020) 5:16 https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-020-00216-7 and Implications ORIGINAL ARTICLE Open Access #foodie: Implications of interacting with social media for memory Jordan Zimmerman and Sarah Brown-Schmidt* Abstract Background: Social media is an increasingly popular outlet for leisure and social interaction. On many social media platforms, the user experience involves commenting on or responding to user-generated content, such as images of cats, food, and people. In two experiments, we examined how the act of commenting on social media images impacts subsequent memory of those images, using Instagram posts as a test case. This project was inspired by recent findings of laboratory studies of conversation which found that describing a picture for a conversational partner boosts recognition memory for those images. Here we aimed to understand how this finding translates to the more ecologically valid realm of social media interactions. A second motivation for the study was the popularity of food- and dieting-related content on Instagram and prior findings that use of Instagram in particular is associated with disordered eating behaviors. Results: Across two experiments, we observed that commenting on Instagram posts consistently boosted subsequent recognition and that correct recognition increased with comment length. Stable individual differences in recognition memory were observed, and “unhealthy” food images such as chocolates were particularly well remembered; however, these memory findings did not relate to self-reported eating behavior. Conclusions: Taken together, our findings show that the way in which we engage with social media content shapes subsequent memory of it, raising new questions about how our online lives persist in memory over time, potentially shaping future behavior. Keywords: Social media, Memory, Elaborative encoding, Food, Disordered eating Significance Statement (used over 354 million times) and #fitspo (used over 67 Engaging with other persons through social media plat- million times). The sheer number of communicative acts forms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, demands a better understanding of the cognitive impli- and Instagram is becoming increasingly ubiquitous. Ac- cations of this type of social media engagement. The cording to Instagram’s “Year in Review” publicity mate- present research builds on prior studies of conversa- rials, in 2018, the heart emoji was used over 14 billion tional interactions which show that describing a picture times, and the hashtag #metoo was used 1.5 million to a communication partner boosts memory for that times (Instagram, 2018). Food-related content is particu- image. Here we asked if commenting on Instagram posts larly popular on Instagram, with #foodporn tagged on similarly boosts memory for those posts. Across two ex- over 206 million posts, #foodie on over 133 million periments, we observed that commenting on Instagram posts, and #vegan on over 83 million posts. A notable posts consistently boosted subsequent recognition and feature of Instagram is that users add comments such as that correct recognition increased with comment length. “OMG YUMMM,” or hashtag comments such as #food Stable individual differences in recognition memory were observed, and “unhealthy” food images such as choco- * Correspondence: [email protected] lates were particularly well remembered, but these mem- Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, ory findings did not relate to self-reported eating 230 Appleton Place, Nashville, TN 37203, USA © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Zimmerman and Brown-Schmidt Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications (2020) 5:16 Page 2 of 16 behavior. Taken together, our findings show that the relationship between the use of media and disordered way in which we engage with social media images shapes eating habits (Harrison & Cantor, 1997; Turner & subsequent memory for them, raising new questions Lefevre, 2017; also see Mejova, Hamed Haddadi, Anasta- about how our online lives persist in memory, poten- sios Noulas, & Ingmar Weber, 2015). Here, we examined tially shaping future behavior. the cognitive processes that occur when engaging with social media content on Instagram. Introduction A notable feature of the Instagram platform is that in- Engaging with other persons through language and stead of simply browsing through the content, users can media is both common and impactful. According to the also add comments to the images they see (and see American Time Use Survey (US Department of Labor, others’ comments as well). These comments often fea- 2019), in 2018, American civilians aged 15 years and ture evaluations or descriptions of the image, as in “This older engaged in leisure and sports activities 5.27 h/day, pasta looks sooo darn good!,”“OMG YUMMM,” or on average, including 38 min/day socializing and com- “#foodie.” This act of commenting was the primary focus municating and 2.8 h/day watching television. Although of the present research. Our research question was in- the amount of time Americans spent engaging with so- spired by recent findings from the study of conversation cial media per se is not reported, “playing games and that the act of describing an image for another person computer use for leisure” was also popular, with an aver- boosts memory for that image (McKinley, Brown- age of 28 min/day, though notably, this varied consider- Schmidt, & Benjamin, 2017; Yoon, Benjamin, & Brown- ably by age, with 15–19-year-olds reporting 62 min/day Schmidt, 2016;). For example, Yoon et al. (2016) exam- and 20–24-year-olds reporting 58 min/day. Blank and ined situations in which pairs of participants viewed four Lutz (2016) examined a UK sample and reported that images at a time (on separate computer screens) and social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, took turns describing the images to each other in a task Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram are becoming increas- in which the listener had to locate that image and click ingly ubiquitous and that, at the time of their study, on it. Despite the fact that the image descriptions were Instagram was the fastest-growing of these sites. Accord- fairly simple (e.g., “the argyle sock,”“the bunny,”) over a ing to Instagram’s “Year in Review” publicity materials, in series of experiments, speakers consistently exhibited 2018, the heart emoji was used over 14 billion times on better recognition memory than listeners for these refer- the platform, and the hashtag #metoo was used 1.5 million enced images. Further, memory for viewed but nonde- times (Instagram, 2018). In its 2017 “Year in Review,” scribed images was considerably worse than memory for Instagram reported a “global community of 800 million” images that the speaker had described. In a converging (Instagram, 2017). One motivation for the present re- finding, McKinley et al. (2017) examined the length of search is the popularity of food-related content on Insta- image descriptions and found that longer descriptions gram, such as #foodporn (tagged on over 206 million promoted better recognition memory for those images. posts), #vegan (tagged on over 83 million posts), @food- This observed memory benefit for describing images network (9.3 million followers), @foodgod (3.4 million likely owes to the fact that the labels were generated and followers), and @feelgoodfoodie (2.1 million followers). produced by the speakers, both of which benefit memory The popularity of social media makes it increasingly (i.e., the “generation effect” and “production effect”; Faw- important to understand how engaging with this type of cett, Quinlan, & Taylor, 2012; Macleod, Gopie, Houri- media shapes cognition. Previous research suggests that han, Neary, & Ozubko, 2010; Slamecka & Graf, 1978; memory for social media content is high among the gen- Zormpa, Brehm, Hoedemaker, & Meyer, 2019; also see eral population: Memory for Facebook microblogs is sig- Knutsen & Le Bigot, 2014). Action memory is similarly nificantly higher than memory for sentences from books, better for self-performed actions than for observed ac- news headlines, and even human faces (Mickes et al., tions (Koriat, Ben-Zur, & Druch, 1991). These findings 2013). The popularity of health- and dieting-related con- can more generally be considered a type of elaborative tent on Instagram in particular emphasizes the import- encoding effect (Bradshaw & Anderson, 1982), where ance of understanding how the act of viewing and the elaboration of the image with descriptive phrases interacting with these images impacts the viewer.