A plethora of technology platforms currently exist, from social media to online classes; and this explosion of technology have the potential of filling a student’s day. This presents some challenges for research professors to step up their game and provide some technology assistant activities in the research classroom.
Time spent on the internet and on social media can be habitual. Al-Gamal, Alzayyat, & Ahmad (2016) conducted a study on 587 university students exploring internet addiction and its association with psychological distress and coping strategies. They found a significant positive correlation between high levels of stress and internet addiction.
Increased screen time usage has been found to negatively affect sleep in addition to academic achievement (Hale & Guan, 2015). Time spent on social media can distract from students from studying for classes or taking time for personal devotions.
It is important that students learn how to balance all of these modern-day activities of daily living. If they can learn good time management and study skills in college, then it is posited that these good routines will transition into practice in the workplace.
This study was an intra and interprofessional collaborative study with students from the schools of nursing, (BSN and MSN) along with journalism/communication students from multiple universities across the US. The goal of this study was to Provide an experiential learning activity while exploring students perceptions of the various modern day activities of daily living.
Methodology: Employing both quantitative and qualitative methods, this study provided an experiential learning activity while explored the students perception’s from multiple universities, regarding time spent on modern-day activities of daily living. During the quantitative week students were invited to participate in the quantitative survey. Then the week following, the students participated in quantitative data analysis on the data set they created. During the qualitative week students were invited to participate in the qualitative survey. Then the week following, the students participated in qualitative data analysis on the data set they created.
The sample (N= 211) consisted of nursing (Baccalaureate, RN - BS completion, and MSN) and communication/journalism students. Depending on the specific scheduling of course content, at each university, students voluntarily completed both forms of the survey questionnaires- qualitative and quantitative. Students were requested to complete the survey questionnaires on their prefered electronic device: smartphone, iPad, or laptop. Descriptive statistics and qualitative methods were used to analyze data.
Results: Of the 211 participants, when asked how many glasses of water they have drank per day, 37% have drank 7 - 14 glasses of water per day. When asked how many hours of sleep a night they get, half (50%) of the subjects reported getting seven to eight hours of sleep a night.
When asked how many hours a day they spend watching TV or movies, almost half (44%) reported watching TV/movies 1 - 4 hours a day. When asked about studying 71% reported spending 1 - 4 hours/day studying studying.
Implications: Nurse educators have an opportunity to equip students with good study and time management skills. Exposing students to information regarding how to balance time spent on social media and time focused on their studies can move them towards their transition from school to professional practice. As nurse educators, it is our opportunity and responsibility to equip our students with good study skills and time management skills. Educating our students on how to manage social media time consumption is a wonderful skill-set to equip our students with as they transition to the professional nursing role.
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