Digital Overload among College Students: Implications for Mental Health App Use
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Participants
2.2. Procedure
2.3. Data Analysis
3. Results
3.1. Screen Time and Notifications Data
3.2. Themes
3.2.1. Attitudes and Behaviors toward General Phone Use
“Checking social media can be a drag on mental health when you see that other people have like such a great life compared to you because of selective sharing on social media”.(Participant 7)
3.2.2. Impact of Phone Organization on Phone Use
“I try and keep my calendar, my school stuff closer towards the bottom to influence me to get back to work”.(P4)
“On my front screen I have no social media apps. I used to have that before and then I was like, this is just a waste of time. If I have to go, because I know that if I have to actually go and slide all the way through everything to find it, then I’m not going to use it as often”.(P12)
“[I] swipe down and then type into the bar at the top because I also read somewhere that that’s apparently, like you’re more intentional, if you have to physically type it out”.(P1)
3.2.3. Using Apps for Mental Health Purposes
3.2.4. Barriers to Regular Use of Mental Apps
“I just got into the routine of my boyfriend sleeping with me and like I wasn’t going to play an app with him there, there’s just no point”.(P2)
“I do use Calm, not on a daily basis or something, but more if I’m like having a specific incident with anxiety, I will use it to calm me down”.(P7)
3.2.5. Reactions and Behavioral Responses to Notifications
“When I got emails in my notifications, it could make it so that when I was trying to enjoy myself, like it just was like obstructing”.(P7)
“If a notification interrupts me doing something else, I don’t look at it... I’m irritated, because I’m like focused on a thing and it’s in the way now”.(P10)
“I think that not having them [notifications] is the cause of me checking it more”.(P3)
“I feel like I check it often, if not more, because I’m like, I wonder if someone sent me something”.(P6)
3.2.6. Suggestions for Improving Integration and Engagement of Mental Health Apps
“Probably something that does multiple things. Like if it were like a mental health app, it would I don’t know, have a weather component or something […] little things like that I think are like a lot easier to then incorporate into your schedule”.(P10)
“Having a direct purpose for the application would make it easy to justify taking away time from something else”.(P12)
“Something that does motivate me to use it, is the fact that there’s like basically a meditation for any kind of mood that I’m in. And for whatever length I need… I know that they’re going to keep adding things which makes it like worth continuing to engage with it”.(P1)
“I think one thing that mental health apps lack... is some sort of like, that idea of interacting with other people”.(P4)
4. Discussion
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Participant ID | Gender | Race and Ethnicity | Age | University | Year in School |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
P1 | Female | Asian or Asian American, White, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander | 20 | Private Four-Year | Year 3 |
P2 | Female | American Indian or Alaskan Native, Hispanic or Latino | 20 | Public Four-Year | Year 3 |
P3 | Female | Asian or Asian American | 20 | Public Four-Year | Year 3 |
P4 | Male | White | 18 | Private Four-Year | Year 1 |
P5 | Female | Asian or Asian American | 20 | Private Four-Year | Year 3 |
P6 | Male | White | 19 | Public Four-Year | Year 3 |
P7 | Male | White | 19 | Private Four-Year | Year 2 |
P8 | Male | Asian or Asian American, White | 19 | Private Four-Year | Year 2 |
P9 | Female | Black or African American | 18 | Private Four-Year | Year 1 |
P10 | Female | Black or African American | 21 | Private Four-Year | Year 4 |
P11 | Male | Black or African American | 20 | Private Four-Year | Year 2 |
P12 | Female | Black or African American | 20 | Private Four-Year | Year 3 |
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Smith, A.C.; Fowler, L.A.; Graham, A.K.; Jaworski, B.K.; Firebaugh, M.-L.; Monterubio, G.E.; Vázquez, M.M.; DePietro, B.; Sadeh-Sharvit, S.; Balantekin, K.N.; et al. Digital Overload among College Students: Implications for Mental Health App Use. Soc. Sci. 2021, 10, 279. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10080279
Smith AC, Fowler LA, Graham AK, Jaworski BK, Firebaugh M-L, Monterubio GE, Vázquez MM, DePietro B, Sadeh-Sharvit S, Balantekin KN, et al. Digital Overload among College Students: Implications for Mental Health App Use. Social Sciences. 2021; 10(8):279. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10080279
Chicago/Turabian StyleSmith, Arielle C., Lauren A. Fowler, Andrea K. Graham, Beth K. Jaworski, Marie-Laure Firebaugh, Grace E. Monterubio, Melissa M. Vázquez, Bianca DePietro, Shiri Sadeh-Sharvit, Katherine N. Balantekin, and et al. 2021. "Digital Overload among College Students: Implications for Mental Health App Use" Social Sciences 10, no. 8: 279. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10080279