Neuroscience of Social Rewards in Online Instagram Behavior

Armed with a simple but unique mechanism, Instagram has become a mainstay in the lives of young people. According to a Pew Research Center survey, roughly 52 percent of U.S. adolescents (aged 13-17) used Instagram in 2015 (Lenhart et al., 2015). This high share of Instagram use is not just confined to adolescents. Another Pew Research Center survey revealed that 55 percent of U.S. young adults (aged 18-29) also used Instagram in 2015, which is double the share among those aged 30-49 (28%) and five times the share among those aged 50-64 (11%) (Duggan, 2015). Furthermore, 24 percent of young people reported that they go online almost constantly. (Lenhart et al., 2015).
These statistics raise two specific questions. What makes young people fascinated with Instagram more than their elders? Further, what prompts young adults to engage in Instagram even more than adolescents? A recent neuroscientific study gives hints for these questions. According to Tamir and Mitchell (2012), the act of s…