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

Official title

Social Media Use Study

Overview

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).

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.

Interventions

• Behavioral Mindfulness
  15 minute daily guided meditation
• Behavioral Social Media Reduction
  Reduce social media use at least 30 minutes daily and exercise instead
• Behavioral Exercise
  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.

Primary outcome measures

• Change in Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale - 21 (DASS-21) [Time frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week]
• Change in World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQoLBREF) scale [Time frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week]
• Change in smartphone screen time (minutes) for social media use [Time frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week]
• Change in number of social media use smartphone pick-ups [Time frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week]
• Change in percent of time using social media [Time frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week]
• Change in social media use notifications received [Time frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week]

Secondary outcome measures (8)

• Change in University of California, Los Angeles 3-Item Loneliness Scale [Time frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week]
• Change in The Gratitude Questionnaire, 6-item form (GQ-6) scale [Time frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week]
• Change in Motivations for Electronic Interaction Scale (MEIS) [Time frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week]
• Change in Comprehensive Assessment of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Processes (CompACT-15) [Time frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week]
• Change in Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS) [Time frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week]
• Change in Fear of Missing Out Scale [Time frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week]
• Change in hours spent socializing inperson with peers [Time frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week]
• Change in number of evenings of past-week recreation [Time frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week]

Eligibility criteria

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

Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.

Healthy volunteers: Yes

Study design

Allocation

Randomized

Model

Parallel assignment

Masking

Open label

Primary purpose

Treatment

Study locations

United States · 1 center

• Johns Hopkins University — Baltimore

Identifiers

NCT: NCT07097545 · IRB00025926-RCT2

Primary sources (government registries)

• ClinicalTrials.gov (US NIH)

View this study on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗