The Impact of Problematic Social-network Use on Individual Risk Decision-making: An Analysis Based on The I-PACE Model and Eye Tracking

With the development of science and technology, a variety of social networking platforms have been developed, and browsing online social networks has become an essential part of people's daily lives, with the attendant risks of increased overuse. Researchers have come to realise that there are many similarities between problematic social-network use and other addiction disorders such as substance addiction. Therefore, it is urgent to explore whether the effects of problematic social network use on individual decision-making processes are characterised by consistency with other addicted populations. This is related to the future clinical definition of problematic social-network use.Study 1 constructed a chain-mediated model based on the Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution Model (I-PACE) to investigate the effects of problematic social-network use on risk decision-making and the chain-mediated roles of self-control and sustained attention in it. Study 1 used a questionnaire survey method. A total of 520 valid questionnaires were collected (133 males and 387 females). Among them, 159 (30.6%) were freshmen, 193 (37.1%) were sophomores, 81 (15.6%) were juniors, 20 (3.8%) were seniors, and 67 (12.9%) were postgraduate students. The results of the study show that (1) problematic social-network use positively predicts an individual's propensity to take risks in risky decision-making. (2) Self-control and sustained attention have a chain mediating role in the effects of problematic social-network use on individual risky decision-making.Experiment 2 used eye-tracking technology with a one-way between-subjects experimental design. Subjects were screened by the results of the Study I questionnaire, and a total of 67 subjects were eventually included in the analyses (25 males). The results of the study showed that there were significant differences between the decision-making mode of problematic social-network users and the healthy population; although both followed non-compensatory processing rules, the healthy population showed more alternative-based processing rules in the processing direction, whereas the problematic social-network population did not have a clear dominant rule in the processing direction and made fewer value-based decisions compared to the healthy population.Based on the dual-process theory of decision-making and prospect theory, experiment 3 introduced a negative framing scenario based on experiment 2 to explore the role of decision framing in the influence of problematic social-network use on individuals' risky decision-making mode, and to answer the questions of whether the decision-making modes of problematic social network use differ from those of the healthy population in the positive and negative frames, and whether there are differences in decision-making modes between the two types of populations in the negative frames. The results of the study showed that (1) in the negative frame, both problematic social-network users and healthy people showed more risk-taking tendency compared with the positive frame, and at the same time, the risk-taking tendency of problematic social-network people was higher than that of healthy people. (2) The decision-making modes of problematic social-network users in the positive and negative frames show significant differences, and in the negative frame, the decision-making modes of problematic social-network users and healthy people are similar, showing value-based decision-making characteristics.This study combines the I-PACE model with the dual process theories of decision-making to provide insight into the decision-making modes of problematic social-network users in risky decision-making. The results suggest that impaired executive control functioning is an important reason why problematic social-network users seek to take risks in decision-making. In terms of decision-making mode choice, problematic social-network users made fewer value-based decisions compared to healthy people, but decision-making mode choice improved in the negative frame. This study provides ideas and suggestions for finding protective factors for problematic social-network users and constructing future intervention models and methods.