Technology and student mental health are more connected than most people realise. Here are five ways our digital lives are quietly undermining the wellbeing of students and young people everywhere.
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Digital media is a two-edged sword. It has the ability to enrich our life or impoverish it. Have you ever wished you could get away from technology, even for a brief time? It is not an uncommon thought among students and young people today. Some people even go on media fasts to promote more meaningful social interaction, reduce stress and achieve better sleep.
I am not trying to take anyone back to a pre-tech era. Technology clearly has incredible benefits for students, for learning and for connection. However, there is a growing body of evidence linking excessive technology use to declining student mental health and wellbeing. Below are five ways our digital lives are hindering, more than helping, us.
1. Digital Dump
We live in a time where we are drowning in information, swamped by other people’s opinions and immersed in strangers’ points of view. At the same time, we are starving for truth. We have a tonne of knowledge, but a trickle of wisdom.
Getting information off the internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.
Mitchell Kaper
How much is really getting in? Creativity used to be found when people went deep, like a scuba diver in the ocean, and gained valuable insight. In the modern era, we surf the web, flitting across the surface but never really diving deep. We are busy and in constant motion on the surface but unproductive underneath.
Herbert Simon, an American political scientist and professor at Carnegie Mellon University, put it plainly: “Information consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” The digital dump minimises our attention and has us wired for constant interference, forever chasing another hyperlink.
What this means for student wellbeing
For students in particular, this constant flood of low-quality information damages both learning and mental health. When the brain is constantly processing noise, it loses the capacity for deep focus, creative thinking and genuine reflection. These are not just academic skills. They are the foundations of emotional wellbeing. A student who cannot find stillness in their own mind is a student who struggles to know themselves.
2. Digital Distraction
The French invented a form of torture where they would tie a person’s four limbs to four horses and get the horses to run in four different directions. They called this agonising, dismembering form of torture “distraction.” Have you ever felt yourself yanked in different directions to the point where your mind felt like it was being tortured?
The art of self-creation, the ability to form and develop one’s own identity, proves to be an almost impossible task when bombarded by constant external inputs. I remember as a child staring out the car window for thirty minutes while my parents drove to a relative’s house. Those times I spent gazing at nothing in particular were often the moments I spent planning my future or thinking about who I really was and who I wanted to become.
Now every waking moment is taken up by another distracting like, tweet or tag, leaving students with almost no time for introspection. For young people, this is not simply an inconvenience. It is a genuine threat to identity formation and mental health. In fact, the ability to sit with your own thoughts without reaching for a screen is one of the most underrated and underdeveloped skills a young person can cultivate.
Reclaiming the space to think
I work with students across Australia in my school seminars, and one of the most powerful things I witness is what happens when young people are given permission to simply be still. The relief on their faces is unmistakable. Most students are desperate for quiet. They just do not know how to create it in a world that keeps pulling them back online.
3. Digital Depression
Professor Jean Twenge points to a growing body of evidence that extensive smartphone use among students is driving the younger generation to “the brink of a mental health crisis.” One study indicated that eighth graders who are heavy users of social media are 27% more likely to develop depression.
In Silicon Valley, the main goal in developing a killer app is to eliminate friction. Uber did this for millions of people trying to get a taxi. Amazon achieved this with its one-click purchase. While these modern niceties are clearly beneficial, does living a totally friction-free life help students develop resilience?
Consider this: to develop strength in a muscle, a marriage or a person, it must undergo resistance and grow through tension. When you are working out in a gym, does your muscle grow most on the first rep or the tenth? Most people would say the tenth. However, the real answer is the eleventh. At the point of fatigue, when you are just about to give up, that is when your muscle grows the most. Living frictionlessly, in my view, is living mindlessly. Engagement, not escape, should be the goal of a meaningful life.
Sleep, screens and student mental health
Another reason digital depression is rising among students is that the last thing 31% of Australians do before they go to bed at night is check their phone. Numerous studies indicate that checking your phone within thirty minutes of going to bed is linked to sleep disturbance. Furthermore, one of the most consistent symptoms associated with depressive disorders is sleep disturbance. In other words, the phone you reach for at night may be quietly eroding the mental health you are trying to protect.
4. Digital Dependency
Many students today exhibit obsessive tendencies when it comes to their digital devices, whether through an inability to maintain focused concentration on a task, or the sense of disorientation that accompanies the removal of their smartphone. Have you ever lost your phone and then lost it completely? I mean, really lost your mind. Screaming, “Has anyone seen my phone?” I know we own these smart devices. Sometimes, though, I feel they own us.
Have you ever been scrolling a bottomless feed and found yourself not even paying attention, as if you were hypnotised? For some students, online activity becomes a means of escape. The internal dialogue sounds something like this: I do not want to be here right now thinking about what I need to be doing. I want to be somewhere else. However, if you get used to not being present and not dealing with your current situation, there may come a time when you simply cannot pay attention anymore.
It is our generation’s crack cocaine. People are addicted. We experience withdrawals. Likes have inconspicuously emerged as the first digital drug to dominate our culture.
Ramett Chawla, technology entrepreneur
Why students are not to blame
Digital dependency is not a moral failing. It is the intended outcome of billion-dollar platforms designed to keep students hooked. Understanding that the deck is stacked against you is the first step in reclaiming your attention, your focus and ultimately your mental health and wellbeing.
5. Digital Dementia
Digital Dementia is a term coined by neuroscientist Manfred Spitzer. It describes how overindulging in digital technologies breaks down our cognitive abilities. Our short-term memory starts to deteriorate because we outsource our memory to our smartphone.
As a child, I could remember and recall at least forty phone numbers of friends and family members. Today I can barely remember my own phone number. I have not committed another phone number to memory for about twenty years. That kind of information is now outsourced entirely to our phones. The ability to remember street names and navigate by landmarks is now superfluous because GPS handles all of that. The problem is that our brain is like a muscle. Either we use it or we lose it.
Whether it is by learning a new language, travelling to a new place, developing a passion for beekeeping or simply thinking about an old problem in a new way, all of us can find ways to stimulate our brains to grow. Challenging our brain, keeping it active, engaged, flexible and playful is not only fun, it is essential to cognitive fitness.
Oliver Sacks, British neurologist
Protecting your cognitive wellbeing
Keep your mind active and alive. Allow room for deep contemplation and reflection. Immerse yourself in a creative project. Use your hands to engage with the world around you. Do more things that make you forget about your smart device. For students, this is not just good advice for academic performance. It is essential for long-term mental health and wellbeing.
The Solution: Digital Dexterity
The solution to all five of these digital stresses is what I call digital dexterity. The ability to manoeuvre skilfully through a maze of online madness requires practising mindfulness, developing selective attention and building the discipline to not respond to every digital demand instantly.
Technology will not slow down. The platforms will not become less addictive. However, students who develop digital dexterity will be the ones who use technology intentionally rather than compulsively. They will be the ones who protect their mental health, guard their wellbeing and show up fully in the world around them.
Want to explore this topic with your students? I deliver engaging, evidence-based seminars on technology, mental health and student wellbeing across Australia. Book a school seminar or visit The HopeFULL Institute to learn more.