Can Prolongate Use of Social Media Immediately Before Training Worsen High Level Male Volleyball Players’ Visuomotor Skills?
Leonardo de Sousa Fortes, Guilherme Pereira Berriel, Heloiana Faro, Carlos Gilberto de Freitas-Junior, Leonardo Alexandre Peyré‐Tartaruga
Abstract
Our aim was to analyze the effect of mental fatigue caused by prolonged social media use on high-level volleyball players' visuomotor skills. Eighteen high-level male young volleyball players participated in this randomized, counterbalanced, crossover design. All participants underwent a 2-week experiment in which we measured their response times when performing a visuomotor task with and without mental fatigue inducement through repeated use of social media immediately before training sessions. In the control condition, participants watched TV for 30-minutes, and in the social media condition, they used a social media app (Instagram ® ) on smartphones for 30-minutes. We found a significant Condition x Time interaction on visuomotor task response time ( p = 0.03), but there was no significant main effect of either Time or Condition. Mental fatigue, induced by repeated app-based social media use for 30-minutes immediately before training sessions, affected elite male volleyball players’ visuomotor skills.