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Analgesic effect of Facebook: Priming with online social networking may boost felt relatedness that buffers against physical pain
Author(s) -
Ho LiangChu,
Wu WenHsiung,
Chiou WenBin
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/sjop.12313
Subject(s) - psychology , perception , priming (agriculture) , pain perception , feeling , analgesic , pain tolerance , social psychology , threshold of pain , psychiatry , medicine , physical therapy , anesthesia , neuroscience , botany , germination , biology
Social networking sites ( SNS s) are extremely popular for providing users with a convenient platform for acquiring social connections and thereby feeling relatedness. Plenty of literature has shown that mental representations of social support can reduce the perception of physical pain. The current study tested whether thinking about SNS would interfere with users’ perceptions of experimentally induced pain. Ninety‐six undergraduate Facebook users were recruited to participate in a priming‐based experiment. They were randomly assigned to one of the three study conditions ( SNS prime, neutral prime, or no prime) via rating the aesthetics of logos. The results showed that participants exposed to SNS primes reported less pain of immersion in hot water than did both control groups (neutral‐ and no‐prime). Felt relatedness mediated the link between SNS primes and diminished pain perceptions. This research provides the first demonstration that thinking about SNS can lower experienced physical pain among Facebook users. Online social networking may serve as an analgesic buffer against pain experience than previously thought. The SNS ‐enabled analgesia has far reaching implications for pain relief applications and the enhancement of well‐being in human‐interaction techniques.