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As technology infiltrates many aspects of everyday life, understanding media use and its impact on mental well-being is important. Media psychology can help us understand how to do exactly that.

Media psychology examines how media and technology shape human behavior, thought and emotion. It explores the interactions between people and media forms such as film, television, social media, video games and other virtual environments. Its focus encompasses both how individuals use media and how media influences perceptions, attitudes and decision-making.

The field draws from various branches of psychology, such as cognitive, social and developmental, to understand how communication technologies may affect learning, identity and relationships. It also connects with media studies by analyzing the creation, design and interpretation of content across platforms.

Interest in how media affects psychology began to grow in the early 20th century, when psychologist Hugo Münsterberg explored how audiences reacted to movies in his book The Photoplay: A Psychological Study.

By the 1950s, with the rise of television, scholars were investigating how mass media affected children and society as a whole. In the following decades, the first theories began to emerge: George Gerbner’s cultivation theory and Albert Bandura’s social learning.

It wasn’t until 1986 that the discipline was given official recognition with the creation of . Later renamed Society for Media Psychology and Technology, this department’s initial focus was to use media to share information about psychology, whether that took the form of sharing “expert opinions” on germane topics or portraying a psychological disorder accurately on a television show.

Since then, its focus shifted to understanding how media influences the public. As digital technologies, such as the internet, mobile devices and social media advance, the discipline has adapted to examine how these tools shape communication and human behavior.

Media psychology explains how media use affects thinking, feeling and social interaction through various theories.

At the foundation of this field is media effects theory, which explores the ways media consumption impacts knowledge, emotions, attitudes and behaviors.

Media effects are typically categorized as cognitive, emotional, attitudinal and behavioral. From a cognitive perspective, media content can influence how individuals attend to, interpret and remember information.

When it comes to an emotional standpoint, media can provide stimuli that triggers affective responses, such as pleasure from entertainment or anxiety from distressing news. Attitudinal effects relate to how media can create and influence opinions and beliefs.

Finally, media can also impact behaviors and actions, as seen in the case of social media content encouraging users to participate in challenges that, on the surface, are dangerous or pointless. Altogether, these results suggest that media is not a simple mirror of society but an active and powerful force within it.

Other areas of research that helped inform media effects theory and the confluence of media and psychology are:

• Cultivation theory: Crossing media and communication research, this theory posits that media, particularly television, can create a so-called cultivated reality that, with enough exposure over a long time, can become the public’s reality.
• Social learning theory: Formulated by Bandura in the 1960s, this theory suggests that people can learn through observation. Attention, retention, motivation and the ability to reproduce an action are integral to its application. This theory explains, for example, how individuals might learn and try to replicate what they previously saw on TV or social media.
• Agenda-setting theory: This theory argues that by carefully choosing what to cover, media can guide the audience’s attention and skew their perception of reality. For example, a news channel that focuses persistently on crime may convince its audience that their city is less safe than it actually is.
• Uses and gratifications theory: This theory proposes that because individuals use media to fulfill specific needs, such as seeking information, building identity, forming social connections or finding entertainment, they are not passively influenced by it.

Historically, people have experienced reality through the influence of a primary group, usually family and friends, and secondary groups, such as schools and religious institutions. More recently, media has played an increasingly influential role.

Media is everywhere: the internet and social media, newspapers, television and radio, among others. Media not only disseminates information, but it also can elicit emotion and shape how people think and behave. In these ways, it can directly affect people’s well-being.

The effects of this influence depend on the nature of the media, how often someone interacts with it and the ways someone processes it.

Social media is one good example of potential positive and negative effects.

Social media became popular because it allows people to do just that, be social, make new connections and stay in touch with friends and loved ones. These platforms are engineered to cause the release of dopamine, the feel-good hormone, creating a cycle in which people return and repeat the experience. For instance, individuals might experience a good feeling when they publish a picture and receive likes and comments.

Consequently, social media can help people:

• Form and maintain connections
• Positively influence people’s mood
• Increase self-esteem

On the other hand, Social Network Psychology research suggests potential downsides as well, which are especially linked to excessive usage. Consequences of the continuous comparison with others through social media may include:

• General decrease in life satisfaction
• Lower self-confidence
• Phone addiction
• Body dysmorphia
• Fear of missing out

Media psychology can also help inform how individuals perceive mental health based on the media they consume. What is continuously proposed by media can, in fact, set the standard for social behaviors, norms and expectations.

When media present mental illness negatively or imprecisely, it can alter people’s understanding, especially for individuals with no personal experience with mental illness. In those cases, media becomes the only source of information.

The opposite is also true. When media reports are accurate and reflect people’s honest experiences, they can educate the public, foster understanding and contribute to normalization. For example, mental health literacy can help people recognize the signs of a particular diagnosis and feel empowered to seek help.

Psychological media studies find practical applications in multiple areas of research and practice.

In therapeutic settings, professionals emphasize how media and technology can support human flourishing rather than solely focus on problems. For instance, practitioners can use movie characters to help clients recognize what certain behaviors could look like in real life.

Moreover, wellness apps and digital therapeutics, which can leverage journaling and gamification, also have their uses. They may help professionals deliver assessments and treatments, teach behavioral techniques and increase motivation.

In advertising and marketing, the study of the intersection of psychology and media allows brands to craft powerful messages that align with human attention, emotion and persuasion mechanisms. For example, messages evoking feelings of happiness and nostalgia, or messages that inspire anger and fear, can be powerful ways to convey a message or call to action.

Research in digital media psychology is based on a variety of methods.

Quantitative approaches rely on laboratory and field experiments, as well as surveys and neuroimaging, to try to identify causal relationships between media use and specific psychological states.

Qualitative efforts that focus on scientific observation, interviews and media text analysis complement those by providing rich insights into how individuals interpret and experience media in real life.

Psychology of media is an academic domain poised for growth as emerging technologies redefine what human-media interactions look like.

Researchers are increasingly interested in algorithmic personalization, immersive experiences and the rise of artificial intelligence, all of which can change how people respond to content. At the same time, they are also exploring how these tools can be used in their work.

, for instance, has the potential to transform how therapists assess mental health conditions. By transporting people into virtual scenarios that can be controlled and adjusted, practitioners can evaluate patients in real time. The same goes for exposure-based treatments.

Similarly, AI has already proved effective in providing differential diagnoses, helping mental health practitioners get to the correct evaluation faster.

As the field evolves, experts are also warning about the need to consider ethical implications. Algorithmic bias, privacy of behavioral and neurological data, and the potential for immersive technologies to influence perception and behavior should remain central to responsible research and practice.

Understanding what media psychology is and how it influences people can be helpful in both personal and professional settings.

������ý offers online psychology degrees that could align with interests in this area, such as the Bachelor of Science in Applied Psychology with a concentration in Media and Technology.

Contact UOPX for more information.