You spend more time on social media when you feel more stressed

Have you ever notice that you don’t want to study when you feel stressed and spend time on the social media platform? Did you ever think of why this happens, and why the vicious circle shows up?

image from https://www.project-meditation.org/how-to-stop-being-stressed-out/

I was curious about this behavior and conducted a research in my first year because, at that time when I feel stressed, I always turned to social media and don’t want to study. I investigated 111 of my classmate and collected a data (graph 1) that showed the more stress they have, the more time they spend on social media platforms.

Graph 1. the number of participants vs. the stress level and the hours spending on social media platforms

credit to the author

The behavior happened may because they began to have an awareness of doing well in the university and tried to adapt the academic life between high school and university. When students feel more stress, spending time on social media is likely to be a way to escape from their study and those things to adapt. The vicious circle might show up when they spent less time on study and got a bad grade and start a new escape.

Eddy suggested that spending time on the social network could decrease students’ stress level. The students probably have the subconscious. If they are unaware of the stress which leads them to spend less time on study, their futures might be ruined.

In addition, students might have bad time management between spending on social media and academic study. They spend more time on the platform instead of study, resulting in an increase in stress level because they might start to worry about they can’t finish their assignment on time or other things relative to study. Indeed, Mustafa Bal conducted research to show that students started to spend a long time on social media without consciousness, wasting their valuable time.

A good way to solve this problem is trying to reduce the stress level so that the time spending on social media would decrease. Because the stress may indirectly affect their study. Students could talk to their friends, parents and even counselors.

It is my fourth year at the university, I get better time management skills and control the stress level better. And now, I don’t feel that stressed and don’t spend a lot of time on social media platforms.

–Catherine Wu