Introduction: The general deficit in inhibitory control of problematic social media users has received widespread attention. However, the neural correlates of problematic social media use (PSMU) and inhibitory control remain unclear. Additionally, the co-occurrence of the fear of missing out (FoMO) with social media use is common, yet its role in the relationship between PSMU and inhibitory control has not been investigated. Methods: This study aimed to examine the electrophysiological correlates of PSMU and inhibitory control using a modified two-choice oddball task combined with event-related potentials (ERPs), and to explore the role of FoMO in this relationship. A total of 66 participants with varying degrees of PSMU were included in the analysis based on the Problematic Mobile Social Media Usage Questionnaire. Results: The study found that PSMU could impact inhibitory control. Specifically, as the PSMU score increases, the N2 amplitude is greater for social media-related pictures, and the P3 amplitude is smaller, while no significant differences are observed for neutral pictures. This suggests that PSMU affects inhibitory control by consuming more cognitive resources in the early conflict detection stage and leading to insufficient cognitive resources in the later stages of the inhibitory process. Furthermore, FoMO played a mediating role between PSMU and inhibitory control. PSMU could further impact inhibitory control through FoMO. Conclusion: This study provides electrophysiological evidence for deficits in inhibitory control in PSMU and suggests that FoMO may further reduce inhibitory control in PSMU individuals.

Emotional events, especially negative ones, are consistently reported to last longer than neutral events. Previous studies suggested that this distortion of duration perception is linked to arousal and attention bias in response to emotional events. Reappraisal and suppression, arguably the most effective strategies for emotion regulation, have been demonstrated to decrease such arousal and attention bias. The present study investigated whether reappraisal and suppression can reduce emotional distortions of duration perception. Seventy-eight Chinese undergraduates were recruited as paid participants and randomly assigned to nonregulation, reappraisal, and suppression groups. Before they performed a temporal bisection task involving presentation of emotional pictures for different durations, the groups were each given one of three different sets of instructions requiring them to passively perceive, reappraise, or suppress the emotions of the pictures. The results indicated that the distortion of duration perception occurred only in the nonregulation group, suggesting that it can be effectively reduced by reappraisal and suppression.

Time perception plays a fundamental role in human social activities, and it can be influenced in social situations by various factors, including facial attractiveness. However, in the eyes of observers of different genders, the attractiveness of a face varies. The current study aimed to explore whether gender modulates the effect of facial attractiveness on time perception. To account for individual differences in esthetic standards, the critical stimuli presented to each participant were selected from an image pool based on the participant’s own attractiveness judgments. In Experiment 1, men and women performed a stimuli selection task followed by a temporal reproduction task to measure their time perception of faces of different attractiveness levels and gender. To control for the potential influence of task order, Experiment 2 flipped the order of the selection and temporal tasks. Taken together, the experiments showed that both men and women exhibited longer reproduced durations for attractive opposite-sex faces than for unattractive opposite-sex faces; conversely, in the same-sex face condition, women still exhibited longer reproduced durations for attractive faces than for unattractive faces, whereas the effect of facial attractiveness on time perception among men tended to be smaller or even fail to reach significance. These results suggest that gender differences play an important role in the effect of facial attractiveness on time perception.

The present study aimed to investigate the impact of fear of missing out (FoMO) on inhibitory control in social media context. The present study used a two-choice oddball task combined with event-related potentials (ERPs) technology to measure inhibitory control. Based on the Fear of Missing Out Scale, participants with varying degrees of FoMO were recruited to complete two studies. A total of 78 participants in Study 1 completed a two-choice oddball task (stimuli “W” or “M”). The results showed that FoMO did not have a significant impact on general inhibitory control at both the behavioral and electrophysiological levels. To further examine the effect of FoMO in social media context. In Study 2, 72 participants completed a modified two-choice oddball task with three types of pictures (high and low social media-related and neutral). The behavioral results revealed that as FoMO scores increased, inhibitory control decreased. ERP analysis revealed that with higher FoMO scores, social media-related pictures elicited larger N2 amplitude and smaller P3 amplitude, but not for neutral pictures. This suggests that FoMO undermines inhibitory control by consuming more cognitive resources in the early conflict detection stage and leading to insufficient cognitive resources in the later stages of the inhibitory process. These findings suggest that FoMO can undermine inhibitory control in the social media context. Considering the indispensable use of social media in the digital age, addressing and understanding the influence of FoMO on inhibitory control could be essential for promoting healthy digital behaviors and cognitive functions.