PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Addictive Behaviors
This article is part of the Research TopicSocial Interaction in Cyberspace: Online Gaming, Social Media, and Mental HealthView all 13 articles
When Time Slows Down: Temporal distortion and addictive social media use
Provisionally accepted
- Pegaso University, Naples, Italy
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This article represents a theoretical contribution on the involvement factors involved in temporal processing related to the use of social media networking. Current literature agrees in highlighting that individuals are not very accurate in making temporal judgments with respect to the duration and progression of events, since they often tend to perceive time in an accelerated or slowed way. The temporal distortion between real time intervals and subjective perceived ones involves several cognitive and emotional biases, implicated in the modalities and frequency of use of social media. These factors, associated with particular individual predispositions, can favor the development of a problematic use of social media in terms of temporal planning and overlapping of activities. This work discusses a possible cyclical model that broadens the understanding and emphasizes the central role of temporal distortion in the onset of social media addiction.
Keywords: Perception time, Time distortion, temporal bias, time online, social medianetworking, Addiction, Internet use
Received: 17 Jun 2025; Accepted: 19 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Anna Vinci, Savioni and Triberti. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Leonarda Anna Vinci, leonarda.vinci@unipegaso.it
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