The Digital Lives–and Dilemmas–of College Students
In touring a college campus, one might expect to see a group of students doing homework on a leafy green quad. One might observe the student center, full of cozy study spots, or a swarm of students lining up behind a bountiful cereal wall in the cafeteria. In other words, a traditional college tour will feature the corners of campus in which students spend much of their time. However, admissions tours and brochures are likely to miss one place where some students spend many hours every day: the world of social media.
Today’s college students can be described as what Howard Gardner and Katie Davis call “the App Generation.” With more than 98% of college-aged students in America reporting that they use some form of social media daily, it is difficult to envision a college experience free from the influences of Instagram, Snapchat, and other popular social networking apps.
Given the headlines on the forms of stress caused by these apps, as well as the troubling finding that countless students are addicted to their smartphones, it would be reasonable to presume that issues related to social media would be at the forefront of students’ minds. However, after following a small group of students on four disparate college campuses, we find a different story.
Our Work
After concluding our national survey of higher education involving 2,000 individuals across 10 college campuses, we spent another two years focusing on approximately 150 students across four schools. As we “tracked” these students, we asked them to spend one to two hours a week writing journal entries about difficult situations and dilemmas that they faced (or observed) in their personal lives, communities, and/or in the greater world.
Contrary to what the headlines on students’ digital lives might suggest, the topic of social media was brought up sparingly by these students; fewer than 5% of all journal entries touched on issues pertaining to social media. Students were more likely to write about broad current events (29% of all entries), academic concerns (20%), and relationships with peers (20%). The scarcity of comments about social media did not come as a shock to us. In our larger study of higher education, the concept of social media was rarely addressed – let alone a concern.[1]
When students did bring up social media, however, their comments were quite revealing. Specifically, we note two suggestive findings:
In reflecting on social media, students thought about others, not just themselves.
In analyzing students’ journal entries, we took note of the framing of their writing. Some comments were quite personal; these journal entries were often framed around the self. For instance, students frequently discussed navigating their heavy workloads, mental health challenges, and future plans after graduation. On the other hand, some students wrote about broad dilemmas related to others (e.g., friends, coworkers, family, etc.), their institution, and greater society. Given that social media platforms have often been associated with extreme self-obsession and narcissism, one might predict that students’ concerns about digital life would revolve around themselves. For instance, we might have guessed that students would be preoccupied with how many “likes” they received on their posts or tweets.
However, while some participants thought about ways in which social networking apps impacted their own lives (e.g., their self-esteem and productivity levels), we found that many students reflected on the impact of social media on other people and the greater world. Indeed, while 55% of journal entries about social media included some degree of framing around the self, even more entries included connections to society (61%). For example, several students wrote about the responsibility of individuals to raise awareness about social issues and injustice online. Some thought about the influence of social media on national events, such as those that occurred at the Capitol on January 6th. Moreover, nearly all of the entries (96%) incorporated some sort of framing related to others or society; students rarely spoke about social media solely in terms of themselves. This finding was somewhat surprising to us; in our national study of higher education, students were much more likely to use the words “I” and “me” than they were to use “we,” “us,” and “our.”
Students took the time to reflect on ethical challenges posed by social media.
We also paid attention to the nature of the issues that students raised in their journal entries. More than half (64%) of students’ entries about social media explored ethical dilemmas. Broadly speaking, these were situations related to social media that required careful consideration, often did not have a clear “right” or “wrong,” and sometimes led students to think deeply about their own values. These considerations were wide-ranging, from questions about whether children should be monitored online to issues regarding the First Amendment.
In comparison to other topics brought up by students in the project, the percentage of comments about social media that included ethical tensions was high. For instance, only 33% of comments about students’ future professions touched on ethics. And while “academics” was one of the most frequently discussed topics among students, few of those entries incorporated ethical considerations (15%).
Importantly, these kinds of ethical dilemmas came up without much prompting from our team. At the beginning of the project, we gave students limited direction for their journal entries; they were told that their writing could be very open-ended. Even with such loose guidelines, many of the entries about social media included an ethical lens; in just the first semester of following students, more than half of comments (56%) about social media incorporated ethical tensions. That number grew as we provided more focus on the topic of “dilemmas”; in the second semester, the percentage of comments about social media that touched on ethics rose to 69%. Still, we find it interesting that students' writings about digital life involved questions of ethics from the start.
The ethical dilemmas – or “digital dilemmas” – that these students raised were far from trivial; students described challenging quandaries related to social media that often lacked an obvious answer or path forward. For instance, several participants wrote about the effects of social media on young children and questioned whether delaying the use of such platforms would be helpful or socially isolating. Others thought about social media and censorship; some contemplated whether large tech companies should be able to ban specific users, weighing free speech considerations against the damage caused by the spread of conspiracy theories or hate speech. A handful of students grappled with digital dilemmas in their own school communities; as an example, one student wrestled with a situation in which a classmate was pushed to resign from a leadership position after posting controversial language on Instagram. A few participants even examined their own motivations for posting online, sometimes posing questions such as: Am I being authentic or performative? As with other findings related to the college experience[2], we found that students’ “digital dilemmas” were more similar to each other than different; some of the same issues came up across students and across schools.
Takeaways
Much of the attention on students’ digital lives has focused on the impact of social media on personal well-being. Though this focus is important, our work sheds light on another dimension of online life that warrants conversation; namely, the ever-growing number of ethical challenges posed by social media. Indeed, the majority of students in our project who wrote about social media brought up puzzling ethical conundrums that often required deep reflection and analysis.
Our findings underscore the importance of efforts to bring these types of dilemmas into the classroom and other communal settings so that students have opportunities to examine them up close. Given that similar issues pertaining to social media came up across participants and across schools, college students would likely benefit from (and perhaps even enjoy) opportunities to dig into and clarify these topics with peers and classmates. And as social media platforms become increasingly entangled with our civic and political lives, the ability to respond carefully and responsibly to difficult digital dilemmas is perhaps more crucial than ever.
Participants’ own reflections at the end of the academic year suggest that a reflective exercise, such as journaling, could also be helpful to students in thinking about digital dilemmas. After students completed their work with us, we asked them, over Zoom, to reflect on the journaling process with us. Many students expressed that the act of writing about their dilemmas once a week allowed them to step back and “slow down” – to think through issues and decisions before jumping to a fast conclusion or acting impulsively.
As emphasized by Ezra Klein in a recent opinion piece on the profound impact of technology on our lives, the digital world is far from slow. Within seconds, a person can learn about events occurring across campus (and across the world), spread information (and misinformation), and post 280 character-length statements that can affect one’s reputation and career. Though these platforms, on their own, do not leave much room for nuanced contemplation, the ability to think deeply before acting (or reacting) online is an important part of being an ethically and civically competent digital citizen. Though the simple act of journaling or reflecting does not replace the need to address digital civics in the classroom, such a practice might complement this work.
We are grateful to the Kern Family Foundation for their generous support of this work.
[1] The lack of attention to social media in our data might be attributed to what some might call a “fish in water” effect; students who are constantly immersed in the world of social media may not take the time to reflect deeply on their time online. After all, in an earlier era, individuals may not have dwelled on their use of the telephone even though it was part of daily life.
[2] In our national study of higher education, we found that students are more similar to each other than they were different. For instance, students are more likely than their faculty counterparts to approach college with a “transactional” mental model.