CUE-REACTIVITY TO AFFECTIVE AND SOCIAL MEDIA STIMULI: ASSESSING MOTIVATED ATTENTION IN PROBLEMATIC USERS

Descriptors: Cue-reactivity, Event-related Potentials, Addictive BehaviorsSimilar to addictive behaviors, Problematic Social Media Use (PSMU) seems to be characterized by sensitized reward processing and cue- reactivity. However, mechanisms related to cue-reactivity in PSMU re-main to be clarified. We investigated cue-reactivity to Facebook cues in individuals identified as problematic vs. non-problematic Facebook users by the Problematic Facebook Use Scale. The Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) were recorded during the viewing of Facebook-related, pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral pictures in 27 problematic and 26 non-problematic users. Craving for Facebook usage was collected using a Likert scale. The results showed that despite problematic users were more likely to endorse higher craving than non-problematic ones, Facebook cues elicited larger ERP positivity (400–600 ms) than neutral, and comparable to unpleasant stimuli, in all users. Only in problematic users we found larger positiv-ity (600–800 ms) to pleasant than unpleasant cues, and higher craving to be related with lower later positivity (800–1,000 ms) to pleasant and unpleasant cues. Regardless of whether Facebook usage is problematic, Facebook cues seem to be motivationally relevant stimuli that capture attentional resources in the earlier stages of “motivated” attentional al-location. Moreover, our results suggest that in higher-craving problematic users, reduced late emotional processing would be the result of defective emotion regulation processes that allow craving states to capture more motivational resources at the expense of other emotional states