Can Smartphone Apps Address Loneliness Among College Students? Case Study and Viewpoint
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Loneliness among college students is pervasive and is associated with lower social adjustment to college, poorer physical and psychological health, and greater likelihood of college drop-out. Interventions to reduce loneliness have traditionally focused on older adults; much less attention has been paid to prevention of loneliness in young adulthood, a life stage that currently intersects with the growing population of digital natives. Although technology has often been attributed to the rise of loneliness, it may be a critical part of the solution. The purpose of this viewpoint paper is to describe the emerging landscape of research using technology to address loneliness in young adults. It draws insights from a case study on Nod, a smartphone app that incorporates positive psychology, cognitive behavioral skill-building exercises, and mindfulness-based self- compassion to help college students build social connections. Six in-depth qualitative user experience interviews were conducted with first-year college students to identify how app features may be enhanced to promote behavior change. Integrating participatory design insights from these interviews, this paper seeks to provide perspectives on how to design for social connectedness. Leveraging smartphone app technology is a promising strategy to support social connection and impact modifiable cognitive and behavioral risk factors for loneliness during young adulthood — how this can be achieved and designed for is a complex task and warrants further research.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | June 2020 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Gary, Ashlyn |
|---|
Subjects
| Subject | loneliness |
|---|---|
| Subject | young adult |
| Subject | college |
| Subject | smartphone app |
| Subject | transformative technology |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Gary, Ashlyn. (2020). Can Smartphone Apps Address Loneliness Among College Students? Case Study and Viewpoint. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/gh429jj5758
Collection
Community Health and Prevention Research (CHPR) Master of Science Theses
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- Contact
- ashlyng@stanford.edu
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