Texting while stressed: Implications for students’ burnout, sleep, and well-being.

Abstract

Text messaging has become an integral part of social life, especially among adolescents and young adults. As a potentially continuously accessible form of communication, texting may affect individuals’ psychosocial functioning in interesting—and unexplored—ways. The current study examines links among interpersonal stress, text messaging behavior, and 3 indicators of college students’ health and well-being: burnout, sleep problems, and emotional well-being. It was proposed that high rates of text messaging may exacerbate the effects of interpersonal stress on these aspects of students’ health and well-being. Participants included 83 first-year undergraduate students. Results of hierarchical regression analyses indicated that higher levels of interpersonal stress were significantly associated with compromises in all 3 areas of functioning. A higher number of daily texts was directly associated with more sleep problems. The number of daily texts moderated the association between interpersonal stress and both burnout and emotional well-being; interpersonal stress was associated with poorer functioning only at higher levels of texting. Promising future directions for research on texting behavior are discussed.

Locus of control and cell phone use: Implications for sleep quality, academic performance, and subjective well-being

“…Recently, research has linked high frequency cell phone use with the following outcomes: reduced academic performance (Dietz & Henrich, 2014;Jacobsen & Forste, 2011;Junco & Cotton, 2012;Lepp et al, 2014Lepp et al, , 2015Rosen et al, 2013;Wei et al, 2012;Wood et al, 2012), poor sleep quality (Fossum et al, 2014;Lanaj et al, 2014;Lemola et al, 2015;Munezawa et al, 2011;Murdock, 2013;Thomée et al, 2011), decreased mental health (Beranuy et al, 2009;Harwood et al, 2014;Jenaro et al, 2007;Lepp et al, 2014;Rosen et al, 2014), increased sedentary behavior, decreased cardiorespiratory fitness and decreased intensity of planned exercise Lepp et al, 2013;Rebold et al, 2015), and decreased life satisfaction (Lepp et al, 2014). Yet, it may be that an internal locus of control could mitigate some of the negative outcomes associated with high frequency use.…”

The association between smartphone use, stress, and anxiety: A meta‐analytic review

“…Thus, even when studies suggest the same relationship between smartphone use and stress, the causal direction of the relationship is unclear. For example, of the studies that suggest a relationship between smartphone use and increased stress, some propose that stress leads to smartphone use (e.g., Jeong, Kim, Yum, & Hwang, ; Wang, Wang, Gaskin, & Wang, ), whereas others propose that smartphone use may cause stress (e.g., Murdock, ). Further research involving experimental designs is required for causal claims to be made.…”

Modifying the Sleep Treatment Education Program for Students to include technology use (STEPS‐TECH): Intervention effects on objective and subjective sleep outcomes

“…Compared to the general population, students tend to have poorer sleep habits, which can negatively impact their mental and physical health (e.g., Barber, Munz, Bagsby, & Powell, ; Dusselier, Dunn, Wang, Shelley, & Whalen, ; Lund, Reider, Whiting, & Prichard, ). Part of this issue may be due to technology use patterns and pressures among students that interfere with sleep, such as text messaging (Barber & Santuzzi, ; Murdock, ).…”