Social media platforms have become deeply embed-ded in the daily lives of young adults, creating environments that encourage rapid and often unreflective digital engagement. This habitual interaction exposes users, particularly Gen Z under-graduates, to significant cybersecurity risks, including phishing attacks, online fraud, and social engineering schemes. Despite growing research on online vulnerability, the specific psychologi-cal triggers that drive impulsive clicking behaviour within social media environments remain underexplored through real-world experimental methods. This study investigates the comparative influence of three psychological triggers—panic, curiosity, and reward—on impulsive clicking behaviour among young adult so-cial media users. A two-phase mixed methodology was employed: a preliminary validation survey to identify the most commonly used social media platform and content type among participants, followed by a controlled classroom experiment involving 40 undergraduate engineering students (n=40; roughly equal gender distribution) in which three simulated Instagram reel links, each designed around a distinct psychological trigger, were simultaneously shared via a WhatsApp group. Click responses were automatically logged in real time using a Google Sheets app script tracking system. Results indicate that panic-based content elicited the highest click rate (58.2%), followed by reward-based content (23.1%) and curiosity-based content (18.7%), suggesting that fear and urgency are the most potent psychological drivers of impulsive clicking among young social media users. These findings have direct implications for the design of cybersecurity awareness programs and digital literacy interventions targeting young adults.
Devarshi Mistri (Fri,) studied this question.