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It also gives campus counselors a concrete reason to ask students not only how they feel, but how much time they spend online and what happens to them there.<\/p>\n
Inside the numbers<\/p>\n
The work drew on the Healthy Minds Study, a large web-based survey that tracks mental health on college campuses across the United States. <\/p>\n
Researchers examined answers from more than 46,000 students, most of them between 18 and 25, collected over the 2023 to 2024 school year.<\/p>\n
Each student reported how much time they spent in online spaces outside of school or work, including nonacademic screen<\/a> time spanning social media, gaming, messaging, and browsing.<\/p>\n They also reported any online harassment and whether they had seriously considered suicide in the previous year.<\/p>\n Professor Seungbin Oh<\/a> at Boston University (BU<\/a>) led the analysis. Students who logged more than three hours daily had roughly 45% higher odds of reporting suicidal thoughts<\/a> than others.<\/p>\n Those who had been harassed online had 77% higher odds. Those numbers held even after the team accounted for depression, sleep problems, and financial stress.<\/p>\n Beyond screen time<\/p>\n The adjustment is important, because it means time online and harassment were not simply standing in for those more familiar pressures.<\/p>\n In an email to Earth.com, Oh said, \u201cOur findings suggest that not only the amount of time students spend online, but also the quality of their online experiences, particularly exposure to harassment, may shape their risk for suicidal thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n Few studies have examined both sides of online life at once, the hours logged and the harm encountered. Fewer still have broken the results out by gender. This study did both.<\/p>\n Young men stood out<\/p>\n The gender split is where the study parts ways with what came before. For years, research on screens and mental health has treated teenage girls as the group most at risk. Here the balance tipped. Among cisgender men<\/a> in this sample, more than three hours a day online was tied to nearly double the odds of suicidal thoughts.<\/p>\n Asked by Earth.com what stood out most, Oh said, \u201cPublic discussions often focus on the effects of social media on young women, which are certainly important, but our results suggest that young men may face a distinct and underrecognized set of risks in digital spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier studies done with younger students had suggested the opposite pattern. One analysis<\/a> of American high schoolers found that the route from heavy screen use to suicidal behavior ran more strongly through online bullying in girls than in boys.<\/p>\n The college data suggest that by early adulthood, that risk may fall more heavily on young men.<\/p>\n The real source of risk<\/p>\n Time online was only half of what the researchers measured. Online harassment<\/a> carried its own weight, and unlike raw screen time, it raised the odds of suicidal thoughts across every gender group. This included men, women, and transgender and gender-nonconforming students alike. <\/p>\n The distinction suggests that counting hours alone can miss the real source of harm. Two students can spend the same time online and come away feeling very differently.<\/p>\n The survey did not record which apps or platforms students used, so it cannot single one out. What it can show is that being targeted online, more than simply spending time online, lined up most closely with suicidal thoughts. Other groups carry documented burdens of their own.<\/p>\n A separate study<\/a> drawing on the same national survey found that lesbian, gay, and transgender students report higher rates of suicidal thinking than their peers.<\/p>\n That study also found that supportive state laws were associated with lower odds of suicidal thinking. Against that backdrop, harassment looks like a hazard that reaches into every group.<\/p>\n A message for clinicians<\/p>\n There is a practical message for the clinicians who see these students. Oh argues that a mental health check-in should cover digital life as routinely as it covers mood and sleep.<\/p>\n Clinicians should routinely ask about time spent online and negative experiences in digital spaces. Young men may need particular attention.<\/p>\n Young men tend to seek help less often than their peers. The findings also come amid a troubling national trend.<\/p>\n Suicide rates among Americans aged ten to 24 climbed 62% between 2007 and 2021, according to federal figures<\/a>, which rank suicide as the second leading cause of death in that age range.<\/p>\n Rethinking digital mental health<\/p>\n Among college<\/a> students, both heavy time online and hostile treatment there raise the odds of suicidal thoughts. Young men may be the group whose digital lives have drawn the least scrutiny.<\/p>\n Oh is careful to note that the study does not cast technology as inherently harmful.<\/p>\n When speaking with Earth.com, he added, \u201cThe broader message is that digital environments can function as both sources of support and sources of stress, and understanding that complexity will be essential for promoting student mental health in the digital age.\u201d<\/p>\n The study is published in The American Journal of Public Health<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"College students who spend several hours online each day may face a higher risk of suicidal thoughts, especially…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-560301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}