Understanding the relationship between social media use and academic burnout during the COVID-19 lockdown

(Photo provided by Daniel Huynh)

“We can all relate to how drastic the impact of quarantine was on students’ mental health… We did find there was a negative correlation between openness to experience and social media use among undergraduate students.” ~Daniel Huynh 

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*In the following article, TS refers to The Synapse and DH refers to Daniel Huynh;

TS: Could you briefly introduce yourself, your supervisor, the topic of your research, and the field it contributes to? 

DH: Hi! My name’s Daniel Huynh, and I’m a 3rd year psychology student in the BA program at UNB. I got to work with Dr. Michael Palmer this semester for my basic research project on the topic of the mental well-being of college students during the lockdown. 

TS: What was your research project and your contributions? What drew you to pursuing this project?

DH: Our research goal was to examine various factors that impacted the relationship between social media use and academic burnout in university students during lockdown. I guess we can all relate to how drastic the impact of quarantine was on student mental health. My supervisor and I wanted to see if factors like impulsivity and psychological flexibility (i.e. how well a person can adapt to different circumstances) would predict how much time students spent on social media. This might help us understand the nature of the established relationship between social media use and academic burnout during lockdown. The result came back with no significant effect. However, we did find there was a negative correlation between openness to experience (one domain of psychological flexibility) and social media use among undergraduate students. 

TS: Are there any future studies that will be conducted based on your project?

DH: I hope so. Another student and I working with Dr. Palmer this term only examined a few factors out of a big data set, so there’s definitely room for future students to explore more on this topic. 

TS: Why did you choose to take the basic research course? To what extent did the research experience align with what you’d expected (amount of work, depth of research question pursued, tasks completed, etc)? 

DH: I did basic research and started this project as a prerequisite for my Honours application next term. I’m so glad I did it because the learning process provided so much valuable experience and practical skills. I’d highly recommend that students consider taking the basic research course even if they don’t plan on completing an Honours degree because you may be surprised by what you can achieve. Funnily enough, I used to hate doing quantitative research before joining the course - the idea sounded rather confusing and dry to me. But I was wrong. It wasn’t as complicated as I imagined, especially with the supervisor’s instructions and feedback. When you break research down into small, individual steps, you start to see everything is kind of connected and makes sense. And you can also have a lot of fun with it. I still remembered the joy when I found a quicker way for data entry that literally saved me three hours of coding. 

TS: Is there anything else you’d like to share about your research experience? 

DH: The research process really gave me the knowledge and the confidence to believe in my ability. I think each student will get different things out of it but, at the end of the day, it is about how we are going to apply what we have learned and make it meaningful for us. Personally, I’m looking forward to doing more quantitative research related to the sexual health and mental health of marginalized groups. Hopefully, the findings will add something to the literature and ultimately benefit the community. Ψ

Created for The Synapse by Incé Husain.