🎢 How Social Media Likes Impact Young Brains
New research suggests the adolescent amygdala may cause hypersensitivity to social feedback
One of the biggest transformations of the 21st century has been our social migration online. For most of us, social judgment and approval used to happen face-to-face when we met people. In the modern world, it frequently plays out in our online posts.
The “like” counter is a highly visible and immediate form of social feedback on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Substack, and practically all other social platforms. After you post an update, there’s an ongoing temptation to refer back to it and see how people are responding. Many likes generally reinforces a sense of excitement and pride, while muted reactions can leave people feeling rejected and even depressed.
The reason that practically all social platforms include this feature is because it gives people a real incentive to stay engaged. When people are excited by feedback, they’re more likely to seek additional approval with continued posting. When they’re left feeling disappointed, they might be less likely to actively post but more likely to passively lose themselves in the world of distracting clickbait entertainment.
New research is suggesting that young people may be particularly sensitive to online social feedback. Their moods, behaviors, and brains are more likely to seek that feedback and more likely to feel affected by it.
🤳 The social and emotional dangers of seeking likes on social media
In a study published in October 2024, researchers analyzed over 1.7m Instagram posts from almost 8000 teenagers (aged 13-19) and 9000 adults (aged 30-39). With their computational models, the researchers pulled out two key parameters related to the behaviors of each group:
Learning rate: How much do users adapt their behavior based on feedback they get online from other people’s reactions?
Example: following many likes, a user with a high learning rate will post again sooner than a person with a low learning rate.
Effort cost: How much effort do users have to put in to post in the first place?
Example: someone who is highly tech savvy will have a lower effort cost for posting than someone who is unfamiliar with the latest social media features.
The researchers saw that teenagers had a 44% higher learning rate than adults. Their online behavior was more driven by social feedback they were getting from other people in their networks.
However, there was no difference in effort cost between the two groups. Teenage engagement with social media was highly motivated by likes but not because it was easier for teenagers to create posts.
To learn more about emotional responses, the researchers recruited another ~100 teenagers and ~100 adults and logged their moods while they used a simplified version of Instagram. Participants looked through preselected Instagram content and could choose to repost some of it. After reposting, they saw the real reaction numbers for that post.
Numbers of likes impacted teenage mood more than they impacted adult mood. Receiving a low number of likes resulted in a significantly sharper emotional decline for teenagers. In fact, while both teenagers and adults reported neutral-to-positive moods at the start of the experiment, only teenage participants ended the experiment with a negative mood overall.
In a final brain imaging experiment, the researchers used questionnaires and real-life Instagram data to assess participants’ online behaviors and psychological profiles. They then examined which brain regions showed activity related to 3 key psychological constructs:
Social feedback sensitivity
Social anxiety
Problematic media use
While several areas of the brain were involved in these processes, only the amygdala was significantly related to all 3 constructs. This is an area of the brain frequently linked to emotional processing, especially emotions such as fear and anxiety. It is also an area that undergoes significant change and reorganization in adolescence.
The experiments together show that online social feedback can be challenging for young people’s moods and behaviors, and heightened sensitivity during adolescence may be driven by a developing amygdala. As online interactions become a deeper part of young people’s lives, it’s more important than ever to guide them toward stronger self-esteem and emotional resilience.
⭐️ Takeaway tips
#1. Limit attention to feedback metrics online
Whatever online social platforms you use, you’re likely to encounter likes, reactions, or reposts. If you ever find that these metrics are affecting you negatively, consider how you could limit your attention to them. For example, you could take a break from the platform for a week. Or you could come up with post-and-forget rules that allow you to keep posting while staying away from stats pages or interaction counts.
#2. Focus on more productive reasons for posting
Rather than posting for likes, focus your intentions on posting to keep a memory diary, posting for personal expression, or posting for any other reason that doesn’t depend on algorithms or perceptions outside your control. Our posts may or may not come with likes and engagement, but when we avoid making reaction counters our primary focus, posting is less likely to become a disheartening activity.
#3. Support younger family members
It’s often easy to dismiss young people’s worries as something they’ll grow out of, but online social comparisons and validation-seeking can cause significant emotional pain. We spend so much of our lives online now that the social approval of strangers on social media can feel more real than the social approval of friends and family. We can help the teenagers in our lives to remain aware of healthy vs unhealthy online habits, and we can reduce feelings of isolation by reminding them we’re always there to listen when they need us.
“Man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection.”
~ Francis Bacon