The association between social media use and cognitive function among older adults: systematic review (Preprint)

Abstract

Using social media is among the most common activity of adults and older people. Social media provides people a new way to communicate with their friends, children, and grandchildren; to receive and provide social support; and to have access to knowledge and entertainment. However, does social media use led to changes in cognitive function in older adults are not well understood currently.

This study aimed to systematically review what is the association between social media use and cognitive function among older adults.

PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, PsycINFO, Google Scholar, CNKI, Wang Fang, and CBM were searched systematically from inception until October 31, 2023. The inclusion criteria were that the study had to be published in peer-reviewed journals and were written in English and Chinese, had full-text availability, target general older adults aged 55 years or older, and assessed any kinds of social media exposure and cognitive function. In total, two researchers independently and collaboratively assessed the eligibility of the retrieved articles and elicited the relevant data and findings using tables and charts.

A total of 7 studies were included: 3 experimental studies and 4 cross-sectional studies (6 English papers and 1 Chinese paper). The SQAC checklist ranged from 0.45 to 0.71. Of the 7 included studies, five were of medium quality, and two were of low quality. Among three experimental studies, one study showed that there was no significant cognitive improvement for treatment groups (social media intervention) versus the control groups; another two studies found the beneficial effects of the social media intervention on aspects of cognitive function, although the effect disappeared at follow-up in one study. For four cross-sectional studies, all studies reported that compared to social media non-users, social media users had higher cognitive performance.

Although the evidence on the association between social media use and cognitive function is limited (e.g., very small number of studies), most of studies reported that social media use is positive associated with cognitive function among older adults. We recommended more researchers to perform more high-quality longitudinal or experimental studies with a large sample size to investigate the association between social media use and cognitive function among older adults.

This review was registered at PROSPERO (ID: CRD42023431985).