The Effect of Social Media Scrolling on Working Memory Among Indian Medical Students: A Prospective Comparative Observational Study

Background and objective Social media use among university students, especially medical students, has become widespread, and frequent use has been linked to cognitive distractions and potential deficits in attention and memory. Working memory is a type of short-term memory and a core executive function that temporarily stores and manipulates information, and is particularly vulnerable to disruption from the frequent use of highly engaging social media content. Most existing literature focuses on the association between prolonged social media usage and cognitive decline. However, very few experimental studies have evaluated the immediate effects of social media scrolling on working memory. This comparative observational study examined whether recent social media scrolling (within 30 minutes) impairs working memory among Indian medical students. Methods It was hypothesized that students who scrolled through social media for more than 30 minutes would perform worse on the digit span working memory test than their peers engaged in non-digital tasks. A total of 140 participants (mean age: 20.5 years) were recruited, of which 58 (41.4%) were males, 124 (88.6%) were residents of Rajasthan, 136 (97.1%) identified as Hindu, 139 (99.2%) lived in hostels, 67 (47.8%) reported an annual family income of less than five lakhs, and around half of the participants (71, 50.7%) belonged to nuclear families. Participants from both genders were equally represented across each year of study. All the participants were divided into a social media group (n = 70) and a control group (n = 70). The social media group completed the digit span forward and backward tests immediately after 30 minutes of social media scrolling, whereas the control group completed the same tests after engaging in a non-digital activity. The mean forward and backward digit span scores were calculated across different sociodemographic variables. Results The social media group scored lower than the control group on both forward (6.63 ± 1.30 vs. 7.61 ± 1.77) and backward (5.46 ± 1.51 vs. 5.90 ± 1.79) digit span tests (p < 0.001 and p = 0.118, respectively). Forward digit span scores differed significantly between age groups, with younger participants demonstrating higher scores (F = 3.80, p = 0.02). Backward digit span scores varied significantly according to year of study (F = 3.76, p = 0.02), residence (t = −2.30, p = 0.02), and religion (F = 2.76, p = 0.04). Conclusions Students who engage in social media usage, especially with short-form video content, demonstrate poorer working memory performance. These findings also suggest that even short-term social media usage may acutely impair working memory capacity. This indicates potential negative cognitive effects of social media usage, including reduced focus and attention among students.