Studies Suggests That Social Media Creates A Real Imaginary Audience

Anxious student using social media getty

In 2024, Forbes.com released a report exploring the impact of social media on the relationships of young adults , including interpersonal boundaries, conflict resolution, and attachment to others. Researchers have also studied the impact of social media on intrapersonal concepts, such as the imaginary audience. For example, a 2024 study in the International Journal of Mental Health Promotion found a positive correlation between social media usage and both imaginary audience and social anxiety . This result is consistent with a 2021 study in the journal of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, which found that high social media use produced heightened neural activity during self-judgements as compared to reflected-peer-judgements. The au