Digital wellbeing is a university responsibility

Universities have spent years adapting to a more digital way of working and learning. Online platforms, virtual learning environments, and mobile technologies have transformed how we teach, research, and communicate.

The next challenge is not simply how to use technology, but to support staff and students to use digital technology in a healthy way that does not compete for their time, attention or social connection.

Recent Ofcom research highlights how embedded smartphones have become in everyday life. Young adults aged 18–24 report spending an average of 6 hours and 20 minutes on screens each day with 5 hours and 5 minutes spent on smartphones. This is not simply a student issue. Across the adult population, two thirds of people report that they sometimes spend more time on their devices than they intended to, with 40 per cent saying this happens regularly.

The argument is not that screens are inherently harmful.

Digital technology is fundamental to modern university life. But there is a role for universities in helping staff and students recognise when technology supports learning, connection and wellbeing, and when it starts to compete for their attention.

Screen o’clock

In March 2026, clinical psychologist Daniel Weisberg delivered a seminar exploring “What’s really going on with screen time, AI and our attention?”

The value of the session was not in the attendance numbers alone. It opened a more nuanced question: not simply how many hours people spend on devices, but whether they feel in control of their attention, habits, and time.

Understanding that smartphones, social media, and emerging technologies shape habits through reward systems and repeated patterns of behaviour raises the question of how universities should respond.

The issue is not only how much time people spend on screens, but what that time displaces: focused study, rest, face-to-face conversation, movement and the ability to be present with the task or people in front of them. The attraction of the endless scroll is not about a lack of discipline; it reflects digital environments designed to capture attention and the way our brains respond to reward.

The seminar prompted attendees to reflect on their own habits. Many recognised how often they reached for their phones without conscious intention, only to find themselves distracted from what they had intended to do.

Students have spoken openly to us about difficulties with concentration, managing the boundaries between study and rest, and feeling the constant pull of digital platforms.

Crucially, they were not asking for technology to disappear. They wanted greater understanding and practical tools to help them manage it for themselves. Staff highlighted a similar need: to understand how best to support learners who identified that behaviours such as late-night scrolling had become more habitual than helpful.

For the sector as a whole, this raises important questions about the experience of young people arriving at university and navigating independence, academic pressures and social connection within an always-connected world.

Time to disconnect

A common response to concerns about technology use is to focus on restriction: banning devices, limiting access or encouraging people simply to spend less time online. The recent debate around restricting social media access for under-16s in the UK reflects wider concerns about the impact of digital platforms on young people’s wellbeing.

Current debates about screen use often focus on children and young people, from proposals to restrict social media access for under-16s to Jonathan Haidt’s call for a more play-based, phone-free childhood in The Anxious Generation.

These arguments have helped bring wider attention to the ways digital environments can shape attention, behaviour, and wellbeing. But they also raise an important question for universities.

The children growing up in an always-connected world are the students who will arrive on our campuses. If the response before university is largely about restriction, what happens when young adults enter environments where digital independence is expected, but guidance is often limited?

Universities therefore have an important role in supporting the transition from restriction to self-management: helping students build the digital maturity they need to navigate an always-connected world.

Supporting digital self-management

Most of us know we spend too much time on our phones. The question is: do we feel able to change? How do we ensure that students and staff have the knowledge, confidence and support to use technology in ways that enhance learning, connection and wellbeing?

Universities need to play a more active role in developing greater awareness and education around screen health. Not by asking people to abandon their phones, but by building the foundations that help staff and students take back control, protect their attention and develop healthier relationships with the digital world around them. This might involve resources that raise awareness, more opportunities to disconnect, or more open discussion with learners to understand when digital habits have become difficult to manage.

In an age of constant connection, knowing when to disconnect is not a rejection of technology, but an essential part of learning how to use it well.