Exploring the Effects of Social Media Use and Environmental Factors

Yale-NUS College

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Whatsapp, Article, No Phone

Treatments: Behavioral: Article; Behavioral: Whatsapp; Behavioral: No Phone

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03247621

A-15-170

Details and patient eligibility

About

In this protocol, the investigators propose a randomised controlled trail to explore the effects of environmental factors and the use of technology on eating behaviours. The investigators have planned two studies to investigate these effects, one on high school students from Raffles Institution, and the other on the university population in the National University of Singapore.

Full description

Participants will be told a cover story that the study explores technological distraction on taste, and asked to complete a taste-evaluation taste of common snacks. One group (intervention group) will be asked to use their personal smartphones to engage in their pre-existing Whatsapp chats while doing the taste test. For the two control conditions, one group will be tasked with reading a neutral article on their personal smartphones while they complete the taste test, while the other group will be asked to complete the taste test without any use of smartphones.

Enrollment: 180 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 13 to 26 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Normal weight: Body mass index of 18 to 25
• Have at least occasional breakfast meals (≥ 3 times a week of self-reported consumption of a breakfast meal)

Exclusion criteria

• Symptoms / history of any medical or psychiatric conditions
• Allergies to food products
• History of eating disorders
• Excessive exercise (≥ 5 times a week of self-reported exercise)
• Currently on a special diet or deliberating restricting caloric intake
• Currently on a weight loss program
• Smoking or substance abuse

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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180 participants in 3 patient groups, including a placebo group

Whatsapp

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will engage in Whatsapp chats on their smartphones during the taste test

Treatment:

Behavioral: Whatsapp

Article

Placebo Comparator group

Description:

Participants will read a neutral article on their smartphones during the taste test

Treatment:

Behavioral: Article

No Phone

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants will not use their phones during the taste test

Treatment:

Behavioral: No Phone