By Ashton Pack and Haven Steele
For The Parthenon
In the digital age, students use their phones more than ever for purposes such as studying, connecting with their friends, entertainment and social media. Both positive and negative effects are attributed to the increasingly high screen time students have.
Britani Black, psychology professor and licensed clinical psychologist, said the effects of phone and social media use are complicated and still being studied.
“I ended up doing some interviews when I worked at the med school because the surgeon general put out a warning that said, ‘I believe social media should have a warning label on it the same way that tobacco, alcohol and other products do,’” Black said. “It’s very complicated because, on one hand, social media can be very connecting for some folks.”
The connecting nature of social media was highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people were feeling increasingly isolated.
“We definitely saw that during the pandemic, folks using TikTok and Facebook and Instagram to reach out to people and have that sense of community,” Black said. “For some folks, there’s also the question of, ‘Does it become addictive?’ Is there negative social comparison, especially with celebrities or images that are altered heavily or filtered? Does that cause negative self-esteem and things like that?”
Black said there is association with younger adults and children to symptoms of depression and anxiety caused by social comparison happening through social media apps.
She said the relationship between anxiety, depression and social media is bidirectional as it can exacerbate existing problems students are dealing with.
“We talk about doomscrolling, we talk about negative comparisons, it could lead to symptoms or exacerbate symptoms that are already there,” Black said. “Depending on things that might be your personal trigger, social media unfortunately has something for everybody, including that. It might be hitting on some things or you might be getting certain algorithms that are not making you feel too good.”
Junior Kira Bell said she tries to limit her time on social media to an hour a day. She said she sometimes experiences negative effects associated with her phone usage, such as lack of sleep or poor sleep.
“It happens if I stay up scrolling. I get less sleep, and that leaves me tired, and I don’t want to wake up in the morning, but I try not to do that,” Bell said. “I try to keep my phone away from me whenever I sleep.”
In terms of addiction, Black said the label of addiction to phones or social media is controversial in the psychological community. She said the negative effects that stem from screen time and social media use are caused by both the amount of screentime and the type of content being consumed.
One of the issues with the frequent usage of social media by students is the tendency for social comparison. Black said social comparison is normal, but because of the nature of social media, it tends to skew perception.
“With Facebook and some of those other platforms, we often know that people [do] one or two things, for the most part: They post the best things of their life or the worst things of their life. That can skew perceptions and lend to some of this social comparison,” Black said. “If you’re only seeing those very specific things, that could skew your perception and make you feel lesser than or more than in any different way.”
A common conversation in the psychological community has been whether social media has impacted attention spans in the age of short-form content like TikTok and Instagram Reels. Black said the relationship is currently unclear.
“There’s been a lot of conversations around that, especially with TikTok. Anecdotally, a lot of people say in the post-COVID TikTok world, ‘I don’t have the attention span for a three hour movie anymore,’” Black said. “To me, I’ve highly debated this with some of my friends in the field. I don’t know if that is social media causing that or stress and life impacts.”
Screen time at night is one of many factors that impacts the quality of students’ sleep hygiene, leading to lack of sleep and insomnia. Black said phone usage hurts sleep hygiene because the body starts to associate being in bed with being on the phone and playing video games or scrolling social media.
Black said phone use becomes problematic when it starts to interfere with daily life.
“At what point is it causing harm and interference to your daily life? If you’re supposed to be in class listening to your lecture, but you’re focused on, ‘Did my friend remember to message me back?’ to the point where you’re not able to focus on the lecture, or you’re spending hours upon hours cultivating your social media when you’re supposed to be doing your homework,” Black said. “Things like that, when it’s interfering with your daily life and causing potential harm to your work life, school life, social and family life.”
Freshman Hailey Kincaid said she often finds her social media usage causing issues with her productivity and mental health. She said she often spends six hours a day on her phone on apps like TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram.
“I go down rabbit holes. I don’t sleep because of it, or I stay up too late, and then I’m not well enough prepared,” Kincaid said. “Or just seeing people do so good on social media and academically well on social media, or even body standards on social media, it gets to your head, I feel like.”
Kincaid said she has noticed she procrastinates more because of her phone usage. She said she thinks she’d do better academically if her phone time was more limited.
Phone use is especially impactful when people are starting a new chapter of their life such as high school or college as students are often more easily influenced by social media, Kincaid said.
“You’re trying to find yourself, and I feel like in social media it’s easy to get lost and forget who you are and want to change to be somebody you see there,” Kincaid said. “Or idolizing random people on social media who you don’t even know, and I feel like it’s easy to want something like that and then be upset that you don’t have that.”
Bell said her academic productivity is sometimes affected by her phone usage as she may take a break from studying to scroll on her phone and end up losing valuable study time. She said students should be more thoughtful about the time they spend on social media.
“I’ve deleted most of my social media except for Instagram and YouTube. That’s all I have, and even then, I’m still prone to get on there,” Bell said, “so I feel like there should be maybe setting a timer on Instagram to automatically log you off after you use it for a while.”
Though there are negative effects associated with frequent screen time and social media usage, Black said there are also a multitude of positive effects for connectivity and meeting new people. She said it has been a significant boon to campus life thanks to the ease of promoting events or meeting new people.
“There are fantastic apps that you can utilize for mental health on your phone; there’s a lot of mindfulness-based apps, there’s journaling apps, there’s a lot of things that can be really helpful for you,” Black said. “There’s a lot of resources on the App Store that can help you with your mental health. YouTube is also fantastic because you can watch relaxation videos and other helpful things to be able to practice coping skills.
“At the end of the day, your phone, whether we like it or not, is a way to connect to other people. I get texts from family on my phone when I’m at work or when I’m stressed,” Black said. “There’s definitely some positives to it still.”
In addition to mindfulness and mental health resources, Black said phone use can also be an academic boost with apps focused on time management and healthy studying habits.
Taking breaks from your phone, setting aside days to do things with your friends and going to spaces where phone use is discouraged are ways to build healthier phone habits, Black said. She said it’s important to find time to do activities that are not reliant on your phone and to set aside time where you’re putting down your phone and taking a break.
Black said students who are feeling stressed or unable to manage their phone time can reach out to the Psychology Clinic or the Wellness Center on campus to get help making healthier habits.
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