Digital detox from social media among students

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Abstract

The digital detox from social networks among student youth is studied. Based on 30 semi-structured interviews with students of humanities specialties aged 18–24 years, open and axial coding was conducted in accordance with the logic of “grounded theory”. The conditions conducive to digital detox, motives for direct digital detox from social networks, motives that hinder digital detox, consequences of digital detox from social networks for the informants’ lives, and their future plans regarding detox are determined. Among the conditions conducive to detox, a positive attitude towards digital technologies in the informants’ families, an active non-virtual life filled with hobbies are highlighted. Digital detox occurs during periods requiring maximum concentration, for example, during a university exam period, when out-of-town students return to their families; refusal of social networks is also possible due to a reassessment of life values and a desire for a more conscious life. The motives for digital detox include: digital burnout, digital consumption, online privacy, and nonconformism. The study showed that respondents do not completely delete their accounts from all social networks, since social networks provide convenient access to information and the ability to communicate with people with whom communication occurs only in the online space. The consequences of digital detox are associated with an improvement in various aspects of quality of life: relationships with the immediate environment, increased time for self-development and leisure, and normalization of the emotional state.

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About the authors

Natalia S. Voronina

Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Author for correspondence.
Email: navor@bk.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8859-6803

Candidate of Sciences (Sociology), Leading Research Fellow

Russian Federation, 117218, 24/35, 5, Krzhizhanovskogo st., Moscow

Yulia A. Koroleva

State Academic University of Humanities

Email: julialove7412@gmail.com
ORCID iD: 0009-0008-5040-9660

Bachelor

Russian Federation, 119049, 26, Maronovskii al., Moscow

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3. Figure 1. A conceptual framework for studying digital detox among college students

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