5 Challenges to Student Well-Being in the Digital Age

Technology has increasingly become central to the college experience, influencing how students learn, communicate, build relationships and navigate challenges both in and outside the classroom. 

But as digital platforms and artificial intelligence become more embedded in students’ daily lives, questions are emerging about how those technologies affect their mental health and overall well-being.

Recent research and reporting highlight the complicated relationship between technology use and student well-being, including the links between social media and loneliness, the growing use of AI for emotional support, and concerns about excessive internet use and digital gambling. At the same time, some institutions are exploring ways to encourage students to disconnect from their devices and engage more intentionally with their campus communities.

Here are five takeaways from recent Inside Higher Ed Student Success coverage on the challenges and opportunities related to supporting student well-being in the digital age.

1. Social media use is linked to loneliness.

More than half of college students nationwide may experience loneliness, according to new research from the University of Cincinnati, which also found that those who spend the most time on social media are particularly likely to feel isolated.

The study, based on survey data from nearly 65,000 students ages 18 to 24 across more than 120 colleges nationwide, found that spending just 16 hours a week—a little more than two hours a day—on social media was linked with higher rates of loneliness.

Loneliness was measured by asking students how often they felt left out, lacked companionship or felt isolated. Students were also asked how many hours they spent on social media in a typical week. About 13 percent of students were classified as excessive social media users, defined as spending at least 16 hours a week online.

Students who used social media for 16 to 20 hours a week were 19 percent more likely to report feeling lonely than those who didn’t use it at all. The difference grew to 23 percent among those who spent 21 to 25 hours a week online and 34 percent among those who spent 26 to 30 hours. The heaviest users—those spending at least 30 hours a week on social media—were 38 percent more likely to report feeling lonely.

Madelyn Hill, an assistant professor at Ohio University who led the study while completing her doctoral work in the University of Cincinnati, said colleges should take a more proactive approach to educating students about the potential effects of excessive social media use, including encouraging them to set time limits and prioritize in-person connections. “Increasing educational campaigns and messaging around that is important,” she said.

2. Excessive internet use raises concerns, especially for young men.

Student success professionals are particularly worried about loneliness, social isolation and belonging among young men, who are less likely to seek mental health support than women. But the challenges facing them extend beyond mental health, intersecting with how they spend their time online and their relationships with others.

The two-day Symposium on Young American Men, held in Washington, D.C., in September, brought together lawmakers, researchers, journalists and organizational leaders to examine challenges facing young men and potential policy solutions. Discussions focused on issues ranging from declining college enrollment and mental health to technology use and economic opportunity, highlighting how these challenges intersect and shape young men’s futures.

For higher education leaders, those overlapping pressures raise questions about what colleges can do to better support young men’s well-being and success. Survey research released during the symposium found that more than half of men between the ages of 18 and 30 spend over five hours online each day.

Businessman and political commentator Andrew Yang described how isolation and excessive internet use can compound the challenges facing young men.

“Too many of our young men are not getting out there. They’re staying at home. They’re in their parents’ basements. They’re going down internet rabbit holes. They’re becoming radicalized,” Yang said. “I want people to reflect on what that means for that individual, but also their family and their community. This is one of the foremost challenges of our time.”

3. AI is becoming a source of emotional support.

As institutions nationwide struggle to meet growing mental health needs, more students are turning to AI for comfort, connection and advice. Now, colleges and universities face a once-unthinkable question: What happens when students begin opening up to AI chatbots instead of people?

Alison Lee, chief research and development officer of The Rithm Project—a nonprofit focused on fostering meaningful human connection in the age of AI—joined Inside Higher Ed’s Voices of Student Success podcast to discuss why young people are increasingly turning to AI for emotional support and what the shift could mean for higher education.

While conversations about AI and student mental health often swing between hype and fear, Lee said the reality of how young people are using the technology is more nuanced, and higher education leaders are still working to understand its implications.

Last fall, the nonprofit surveyed nearly 2,400 people ages 13 to 24, including more than 500 young adults ages 18 to 24, about how their AI use intersects with their social lives, emotional well-being and relationships.

“What was really powerful was when we started to drill into their AI use, what we found was that about one in three young people were talking to AI either for emotional or relational support or were talking to an AI character,” Lee said. “While one in three is not a majority, it’s not an insignificant number.”

4. Colleges may be overlooking digital gambling.

Digital wagering—from online sportsbooks like FanDuel and DraftKings to prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, where users trade on much more than sports—has exploded in recent years. So has their marketing on social media and other platforms, including sports broadcasts.

But data on student digital wagering and how institutions are responding to its rise has been limited. New findings from two parallel surveys by Inside Higher Ed, one of undergraduates and another of student success administrators, offer insight into the issue. The student findings come from Inside Higher Ed’s annual Student Voice survey with Generation Lab of 5,034 undergraduates from 310 mostly public two- and four-year institutions.

Most institutions aren’t tracking digital wagering on their campuses, but 15 percent of student respondents say they’ve participated in online sports betting, prediction-market trading or other digital wagering since enrolling in college. Among men, that figure rises to 25 percent, while 12 percent of undergraduates ages 25 and older report having wagered online.

While just 11 percent of student success administrators surveyed say their institution considers digital wagering an escalating mental health or financial safety crisis, much larger shares of students believe the issue deserves more attention. Nearly half of male undergraduates and a third of women at least somewhat agree that digital wagering is a problem their institution is not adequately addressing.

“Digital wagering and gambling should be part of the standard prevention conversation on campus,” said Jhenai W. Chandler, vice president for research and policy at NASPA–Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. “It also belongs in our discussions about mental health, financial aid and financial wellness, because the consequences show up in all those places.”

5. Disconnecting can foster connection.

As colleges increasingly incorporate technology and artificial intelligence into the student experience, Cornell University is asking its campus community to consider a different question: When might students be better off without it?

In September, students, faculty and staff participated in Cornell Unplugged, a new weeklong initiative encouraging the campus community to decrease technology use and increase face-to-face interaction.

The initiative encourages participants to put down their devices during meals, attend in-person events and spend more time engaging with classmates and nature. Faculty members are also encouraged to consider tech-free or tech-light exercises in their classrooms.

Cornell Unplugged is designed to get participants thinking about their relationship with technology across three areas: how excessive use can contribute to social isolation and disconnection, whether unplugging can encourage more thoughtful and human-centered approaches to teaching and learning, and the environmental costs associated with computing and AI.

“There’s never going to be a one-size-fits-all solution, and there are certainly many and important and essential uses of technology in the learning environment,” said Steven Jackson, chair of the Cornell Sustainable Computing Working Group and vice provost for academic innovation. “The Cornell Unplugged initiative is really about deepening that conversation about where the uses are helpful and where the uses are counterproductive or damaging to student learning.”

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