Change in Social Media Use and Well-being Among College Students Receiving a Two-week Exercise or Mindfulness Intervention
Purpose
The investigators will be randomizing 300 college student participants with high levels of social media use into either a 1) control condition (no intervention), a 2) mindfulness meditation cognitive intervention, or 3) a social media reduction + exercise replacement intervention. Participants complete intervention activities daily for two weeks. The investigators will collect self-report and behavioral measures of social media use and related psychological constructs at three time points: baseline, immediately after the intervention period, and one-week after the intervention period (three weeks from baseline).
Conditions
- Social Media Addiction
- Anxiety
- Depression Disorder
- Wellbeing
Eligibility
- Eligible Ages
- Over 18 Years
- Eligible Sex
- All
- Accepts Healthy Volunteers
- Yes
Inclusion Criteria
- The participant is 18 or older. - The participant must be a Johns Hopkins University student. - Owning an iPhone or Android smartphone, with frequent use of social media use daily (> 1 hour) - Enabling and sharing screenshots of the participant's smartphone use metrics, including number of last-week pickups, notifications received, and average screen time. - Providing consent to participate. - Only exercising 1 hour or less daily, on average.
Exclusion Criteria
- younger than 18 - Not a Johns Hopkins University Student - Doesn't own a smart phone - Uses smartphone less than 1 hour daily - Exercises more than 1 hour daily
Study Design
- Phase
- N/A
- Study Type
- Interventional
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Intervention Model
- Parallel Assignment
- Intervention Model Description
- Three groups of 1) no intervention, 2) mindfulness, or 3) social media reduction + exercise replacement intervention arms
- Primary Purpose
- Treatment
- Masking
- None (Open Label)
- Masking Description
- Both participants and investigators will know which intervention group each participant has been randomized into.
Arm Groups
| Arm | Description | Assigned Intervention |
|---|---|---|
|
No Intervention Control |
Participants will not receive an intervention. Participants will receive instructions to use social media use as usual. |
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|
Experimental Mindfulness |
Approximately 15 minute mindfulness style meditations will be completed daily for two weeks through the Calm platform. Participants can listen to the exercise on the web-enabled version of Calm, or through the smartphone app. The first course is entitled "7 Days of Gratitude" and centers around noticing and appreciating things in daily life, the second course is entitled "7 Days of managing stress" that focuses on building awareness and coping with that specific area of mental stress, such as de-escalating stress, mind-body connection, strong emotions, negative self-talk, and how events are interpreted. |
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|
Experimental Social Media Reduction + Exercise |
Participants will reduce social media use by at least 30 minutes daily for two weeks. Simultaneously, participants will exercise at least 30 minutes daily. Participants are given examples of common exercises (walking, yoga, strength training, etc.), but are allowed to choose any type, although dissuaded from activities with high potential for injury. |
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Recruiting Locations
More Details
- Status
- Recruiting
- Sponsor
- Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Detailed Description
The objective of this study is to test two cognitive and behavioral interventions designed to reduce social media use and improve psychological constructs related to social media use in a sample of university students. The cognitive intervention is a mindfulness meditation exercise taken from the Calm app focused around gratitude and stress management. Each meditation takes approximately 15 minutes to complete and is to be done daily for two week. The second behavioral intervention is asking participants to reduce social media use for 30 minutes daily for two weeks and replacing that time with physical exercise of the participants' choosing. Aim 1: Compare psychological constructs related to mental health (well-being, stress, depression, anxiety, loneliness, social comparisons, etc.) before and after conducting two social media use interventions over two weeks, compared to a control condition (no intervention). Aim 2: Compare self-reported and behavioral (smartphone screenshots of social media use screentime) measures of social media use before and after two social media use interventions over two weeks, compared to a control condition (no intervention). Aim 3: Examine mental health and social media use one week after the intervention period is complete (3-week follow up) or testing whether the interventions have effects beyond the intervention period.
