Agency over social media use can be enhanced through brief abstinence, but only in users with high cognitive reflection tendencies

Abstract

Many social media users have lost some agency over the use of these sites. Restoring this sense of agency is important as it can help users live responsibly with the technology, and can serve as a target for therapists treating people with difficulty to control their social media use. Nevertheless, knowledge about ways to increase people's sense of agency has been limited. In this study I propose that invoking reflections about agency but allowing normal use will likely produce realization about loss of agency, and result in undesirable reduced sense of agency. In contrast, I suggest that if invoking reflections on agency is followed by a brief abstinence attempt, people will process insight..