Change in Social Media Use and Well-being Among College Students Receiving a One-week Exercise or Mindfulness Intervention

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Status: Completed

Conditions: Social Media Addiction; Depression, Anxiety; Well-Being, Psychological

Treatments: Behavioral: Mindfulness; Behavioral: Social Media Reduction + Exercise

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06143852

IRB00025926

Details and patient eligibility

About

The investigators will be randomizing 150 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 one week. 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.

Full description

The objective of this study is to test two cognitive and behavioral interventions designed to reduce social media use and psychological constructs related to social media use in a sample of university students.

The first cognitive intervention is a mindfulness meditation exercise taken from the Calm app centering around gratitude. Each meditation takes approximately 12 minutes to complete and is to be done daily for one week. The second behavioral intervention is asking participants to reduce social media use for 30 minutes daily for one week 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 a period of one week, compared to a control condition (no intervention).

Aim 2: Compare self-reported and behavioral (smartphone screen shots of social media use screen time) measures of social media use before and after two social media use interventions over a period of over one week, compared to a control condition (no intervention).

Aim 3: Examine mental health and social media use one week after the intervention period is complete (follow up), examining or testing whether effects last beyond the intervention period.

Enrollment: 140 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

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 your 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

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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140 participants in 3 patient groups

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants will not receive an intervention. They will receive instructions to use their social media use as usual.

Mindfulness

Experimental group

Description:

Approximately 12-minute mindfulness-style meditations will be completed daily for one week through the Calm platform. Participants can listen to the exercise on the web-enabled version of Calm, or through the smartphone app. The course is entitled "7 Days of Gratitude" and centers around noticing and appreciating things in daily life.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Mindfulness

Social Media Reduction + Exercise

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will reduce their social media use by at least 30 minutes daily for one week. Simultaneously, participants will exercise at least 30 minutes daily. Participants are given examples of common exercises (walking, yoga, strength training, etc.), but they are allowed to choose any type, although they are dissuaded from activities with high potential for injury.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Social Media Reduction + Exercise