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Making social media work in Higher Education
Making social media work in Higher Education

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3.1 Self-regulation

There is a growing body of research that demonstrates how problematic extensive social media use can be. In particular, it is now accepted that people can neglect important aspects of their life as a result of their social media use. Another estimate from 2018 suggested people spend an average of 24 hours a week online (Huffington Post, 2018 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] ). This is more than the average part time university student is supposed to spend studying. Self regulation is key to managing social media use for education. Here Cath Brown explains how she manages her own social media engagement.

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Transcript: Video 3 Distraction

Cath Brown
I probably spend too much time on social media. I think it can be a problem, people can do it when they’re procrastinating, it’s an easy distraction, I think lots of us do that, maybe we wake up and we start doing scrolling before we’re actually doing anything else and get to work in the day. One of the things trying to do some work that particularly needs, I’m particularly tempted to procrastinate, is doing something like a timer. And I know a lot of students use that sort of thing within their studies, things like the Pomodoro Technique to encourage them to focus for a particular amount of time before having a break. And I’d probably do that in a sense the opposite that... I would limit how long I’d be on social media by actually saying, okay, I’m allowed to just look at this group or I’m not going to spend more than 20 minutes on this occasion and then I can come back to it later. But I do think it’s important too because you can easily go off down the rabbit holes otherwise, can’t you? You can just spend hours and hours.
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Here Olivia Kelly also talks about how students manage their time on social media.

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Olivia Kelly
So one of the really interesting things from my research and from the interviews was how much the students had to kind of manage, as you say, their use of social media for lots of different reasons. But one was about the time thing and saying, you know, don’t end up, you know, going down rabbit holes and just, you know. spending hours just scrolling and seeing what people are saying about things. The, so yes, some talked about, um, setting just aside a certain amount of time each day and saying, this is all I’m going to do. But others, um, uh, one student in particular said, but how they used it as like a reward at the end of their study time, they would say, okay, I’m going to study for whatever two hours. And then my reward was to get to sit. the cup of tea and scroll through Twitter. And so yeah, there was ways of managing and they all recognised that was something they needed to do, what was control it in that way, but it was something that they planned out.
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In both videos, Cath and Olivia talked about how people may find themselves ‘going down rabbit holes’ when on social media – meaning they end up in places they did not intend to go by just following what was on there. However, if you are worried about the amount of study time you might be losing to social media, don’t be too hard on yourself, as you will learn in the next section it might not all be your own fault!

Activity 5 The addictive nature of social media

Timing: 30 minutes

Click on the aspects below and then reflect on the questions about the ways in which social media can be addictive.

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Figure 6 (interactive): How social media can be addictive. Based on research by Catherine Price (2018).
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Three click and reveal tabs:

  1. The value of our attention

    Although social media apps are most often ‘free’ to the user in the sense that there is no upfront cost, these are still business driven apps that are designed to make money. They do this in two main ways that involve you and your data. For example, the more time you spend on social media the more data you generate which can, in turn, be sold to external companies. In addition, your behaviour is tracked so that you are targeted with adverts that best reflect your preferences. This explains why they want to grab your attention on their apps and to keep you on them for as long as possible.

  2. Behavioural tricks used to keep us scrolling

    Social media is specifically designed to capture our attention. It uses features that tap into our behavioural responses. Psychologists have described how ‘intermittent reinforcements’ such as the ‘pull to refresh’ features keep us on social media for longer than we expect. For example, you may find you check social media expecting or hoping that there may be something exciting waiting for you. Even though sometimes there’s not, the unpredictability of content keeps you coming back to check. Also, by making feeds endless, there is no natural end point to scrolling on social media.

  3. Brain Chemistry

    Aspects of social media such as gamification and ‘likes’ are designed to take advantage of impulses to be social and to take advantage of our fear of missing out (FOMO). Every time we check our social media, dopamine triggers, known as the ‘feel good’ hormone, are activated as we get excited that something new or interesting maybe waiting for us. This encourages us to check time and time again.

Figure 6 (interactive): How social media can be addictive. Based on research by Catherine Price (2018).
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  • How can data in the form of a ‘life’ be used for social media companies?
  • How does social media keep you scrolling through their apps?
  • What does dopamine have to do with why you keep scrolling on social media?
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Discussion

Understanding how social media is designed to be addictive, to keep you scrolling, can help you to understand how you need to work harder to self-regulate your behaviour. Every interaction you have on social media is intended to maximise the amount of time you spend on these apps. So, it is important that as the companies are not putting your best interests at the heart of their apps, that you learn how to take control of your own social media usage.

Here is a list of things you can do to help you self-regulate your social media use.

  1. Reduce your use gradually by setting a timer to prevent you checking your phone too regularly
  2. Reduce or remove the number of alerts that come directly through to your phone
  3. Try deleting any games or apps that are taking up a lot of your time
  4. Be mindful of the amount of time you are on your phone
  5. Restrict the number of people you follow
  6. Consider downloading a blocker app that restricts access to social media during certain hours
  7. Keep your phone away from you when you are trying to achieve something important

Pick at least three and add them into your Personal Social Media Plan.

In the next section, you will conclude this section on self-regulation by learning about an emerging area of research which can help you see the way that even a few seconds on social media can steal your attention.