A social media challenge: phone, apps and mental health

Alessandra Patti, November 9th, 2020

I want to share the story of the results of a social media challenge I launched a few weeks ago with my University of St. Gallen students, whom I am currently teaching “Self-Esteem in the Digital Age” online, and are on a bachelor level.

The challenge consisted in a reduction of mainly two things: 1. time spent on social media apps per day and 2. time browsing on the phone. It was conducted 3 weeks before Switzerland started placing again some confinement restrictions (such as restricting the possibilities of entertainment activities after 11 pm). However, due to the corona circumstances, a few students were either doing quarantine or self-isolation during the social media challenge, which of course made it even more challenging.

The number of students who did the challenge was 35. They come from various nationalities, being both exchange and resident students here in Switzerland. No names are reported here, but the participants gave permission to share the findings of the challenge.

Challenge: Use of the social media apps for a total of maximum 1.5 hours per day (WhatsApp excluded)

Duration: 5 days (Wednesday through Sunday)

TIME RANGE for the 1.5 hour: 12 PM through 8 PM

* Morning restriction: No socials until 12 pm, only possible to check WhatsApp but after breakfast time.

* Night restrictions: notifications of WhatsApp off by 9 pm

* Email option: 3 days a week, don’t open it before 11 am

Objective of the challenge: notice any change in self-perception, self-esteem and general wellbeing. I wanted to make them self-reflect on the impact of social media on their lives and on their mental wellbeing.

The participants were given also the option to stop the challenge at any times, if anxiety or extreme discomfort were massively affecting their day by day; or if there were urgencies. Only one participant had to stop the challenge. They were also given stress management exercises and a list of alternative activities to do during the challenge, instead of using their phones.

Here the graphic of the difficulties encountered, and they are reported on a survey I sent them at the end of the challenge.

About the difficulty:

- People who already did not use the phone too much reported not a significant self-esteem increase. This clearly did not pose a challenge to them since there was no habit difference.

- Not so much of a challenge if the student was outside of the usual studying environment (home abroad, i.e.). This might demonstrate that taken out of the usual environment, we behave differently with social media too or that we have different distractions.

- Evening activities seem to be all phone- related. People had to find new ways of entertaining their evenings.

- If combined with quarantine, the challenge was quite difficult because you obviously have more time on your hands and cannot go out and engage in different activities.

INTERESTING FINDINGS (Interesting to me, considering my assumptions about Generation Z)

Benefits reported:

- More focus

- Feeling happier

- Not having to rush to the phone and wait until after breakfast to use WhatsApp

- Realization of dependency

- Less hand hurting

- Less stressful mornings

- It seems that actual book reading is an obstacle due to social media or phone usage. And because of the challenge, people got to it

- Regained power from the urge of being available

- Less news intake, therefore less negativity

- Mental health awareness

- Less anxiety

- Less headaches (80% of participants reported it)

- More time to tidy up

In particular, regarding self-esteem perception, 48.6% of the participants reported that the experience has empowered them more or contributed to their self-esteem.

And here the participants reporting how they have felt mentally. I find it interesting, since the most prevalent feeling was “feeling more fresh”, not necessarily happier, but less anxiety and more awareness were reported.

1% of the participants reported feeling worse, because of the impact of the challenge on the communication with family and friends abroad.

About guilt and boundaries

Guilt seems to be present because there is an extreme expectation of being 24/7 available: pressure on ourselves and expecting it from others too; with 51% feeling guilty at times and 8% feeling they had to justify themselves a lot. A promising 40% in the direction of not having to justify themselves.

What are the most used apps by the participants?

- WhatsApp: winner of apps usage

- Instagram and Facebook equally

- YouTube

- Tik Tok

Biggest realizations and a quote from a participant:

- “Realizing how disconnected we are from our own souls and how connected we are to a fake world”

- If the challenge is combined with stressful events such as big presentations, then it made the person feel worse. Generally social media is perceived also as “stress relief”

- It’s pretty common that people expectation is that one is available 24/7

- Anxiety as major consequence of wanting to be available

- Even if the participants were advised about certain activities they could do instead of using the phone, there was a tendency to use other apps as a coping mechanism when not allowed to use WhatsApp.

Being nowadays social media on the spot for the topic of mental health, I hope that these reflections bring more awareness and a more mindful use of technology in general and how we handle information. Our self-esteem is important; we are unique and we should not compare ourselves to others.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.