Emerging adults are heavy users of smartphones and social media, a behavioral trend that may disrupt the experience of solitude and decrease the corresponding benefits for mood regulation and identity development. This study used the experience sampling method to assess the associations between solitude, social media use, and psychological adjustment in the everyday lives of 69 college students and to investigate whether individual differences in extraversion and the preference for solitude influenced these associations. Cluster analyses showed that high-functioning introverts with high identity development and low loneliness were more likely than extraverts and low-functioning introverts to spend time truly alone without using social media, and they exhibited the lowest social media use in general. Analyses using covariance pattern modeling indicated that, contrary to expectations, participants were happier when on their devices, particularly when they were alone but preferred to be with people. These findings illustrate both the appeals and pitfalls of social media and device use. Although our moods may improve from using social media during solitude, chronic device use when alone may inhibit identity development and other psychosocial developmental tasks.

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Meeting college students’ basic needs is the goal of a new set of student success initiatives that address students’ urgent food, housing, or financial hardships in an effort to help them remain and succeed in college. Focusing on one California public university, we describe one such basic needs program, identifying the students who participate, their hardships and services received, and their retention over time. Students presented with issues in four main areas: food insecurity, mental health, multiple severe hardships, and need for one-time supports. In general, participants were retained at lower rates than the campus average, which is to be expected given their severe hardships. However, those who enrolled in the Supplementation Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) were retained at higher rates, on par with or higher than university-wide retention. California has amended SNAP regulations to waive work requirements for low-income students, making it easier for college students to qualify.

Learning Support Services at the University of California, Santa Cruz is intended to aid students—particularly those who are at highest risk of academic failure—to master the required material and succeed in their courses. It includes two primary components: modified supplemental instruction (MSI) and tutoring. This study uses data from administrative records kept by University of California, Santa Cruz on its students’ academic experiences in the 2010–2011 to 2013–2014 academic years to examine the extent of utilization of MSI and tutoring, the types of students engaged in these activities, and the role of Learning Support Services in aiding students to improve their course grades, remain in school, and graduate in 4 years. The study addresses gaps in the literature on both supplemental instruction and tutoring by offering a new method to reduce selection bias in comparing participating to nonparticipating students and by focusing on the extent of participation in programs, rather than whether participation occurred or not. Students who participated in MSI and tutoring earned higher course grades when compared with other students and, in the case of MSI, compared with themselves in courses where they did not participate in MSI. Tutoring, but not MSI, was associated with improvements to retention, and neither was associated with improvements to 4-year graduation.

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