Happy, healthy smartphone use: A participatory action research to improve higher education students’ mental well-being

Background

Smartphones offer nonstop connectivity, but excessive use can lead to smartphone addiction1. Adolescents’ exposure to enticing online content, stimulating dopamine production, may especially result in excessive smartphone use, because in adolescence brain regions associated with the desire for attention, feedback and reinforcement are more active2.

Research suggests that reduced smartphone use is linked to fewer mental health issues3, whereas excessive phone use and mental health problems may lead to study delay or dropout4. Yet, while many strategies for managing smartphone use exist, they are often not tested for effectiveness and lack participatory development. Hence, this participatory action research aims to: 

a)       gain insight into the challenges that adolescents experience with smartphone use during the first year of college, i.e. when they have to show a significant degree of self-management in combining studying, taking care of themself, arranging parttime jobs to finance study and housing, and maintaining and expanding their social network; 

b)      cocreate tools for happy, healthy smartphone use and test their effectivity.

Methods

The project idea was coined by Madelief, a 2nd year Linguistics student at University of Groningen, for the Dutch ZonMW program Healthcare research for and by adolescents. Supervised by Windesheim University researchers the participatory method of Design Thinking5 is applied to understand the needs of participants (students from 3 universities: Windesheim, Hanze, Groningen), frame problems, create ideas for solutions and adopt a practical approach to prototype and test. In each phase students meet in focus groups.

Results

The first results reveal students' (n=13) challenges in achieving happy, healthy smartphone use in a smartphone-driven society, e.g. balancing must and may use, futile attempts to reduce, and lack of guidance and support. Also, participating in our focus groups already increased smartphone awareness. Final results are expected in July 2024.

Conclusion/discussion

Supported by the project leader, Madelief is happy to present and discuss the participatively gained insights about students’ experiences with smartphone use, the effectiveness of their tailored solutions and other lessons learned from this pioneering project at Lisbon Addiction 2024.

1. Valkenburg, P. (2022). Social media use and well-being: What we know and what we need to know. Current Opinion on Psychology 45.

2. Fernandez, V. (2022). Social media, dopamine, and stress: Converging pathways. Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science.

3. Larsen, H. et al. (2023). Excessive smartphone use and addiction: When harms start outweighing benefits. Addiction 118: 586-588.

4. Amez, S. & Baert, S. (2020). Smartphone use and academic performance: A literature review. International Journal of Educational Research 103.

5. Palma, G. (2020). Design Thinking for Social Innovation in an Era of Social distancing. Proposal for a workshop programme.