The Neuroscience of Social Reward in Online Instagram Behavior

Statistics consistently show that adolescents and young adults have been among the most enthusiastic users of Instagram. This photo-sharing app is so captivating for today’s young people that a majority of those - 52% of adolescents (aged 13-17) and 55% of young adults (aged 18-29) in the United States - pointed out Instagram as their most frequently-used social media platform (Lenhart et al., 2015; Duggan, 2015). Then, an important question arises. What makes young people fascinated with Instagram? A recent neuroimaging study provides a clue for it. In their research on adolescents’ Instagram behavior, Sherman et al. (2xxx) found that the receipt of ‘Likes’ on Instagram evokes neural activation in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), which is known as reward circuitry activated by the subjective experience of reward and pleasure (e.g., eating chocolate, winning money, etc.), including social reward. This implies that the desire for social reward – receiving positive feedbacks, suc…