AP Success - AP English Language: Fighting Digital Addiction

My four-year old niece is obsessed with her iPad and she is

not alone. Not only are tablets far more common in

households with children, but an astonishing 86.6 percent of

kids under the age of three exceed the American Academy of

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Pediatrics’ screen time recommendations. While I fear the

developmental consequences of my niece’s early-age exposure

to screens, my college-age peers and I should know that we,

too, are marred by our current use of technology.

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In fact, technology lies at the foundation of understanding

the current youth mental health crisis. And yet, there has

been no indication that any action addressing the two in

tandem has been made at Princeton. It is paramount that

University administrators take the national lead in

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combating digital-driven mental health struggles on campus

with improved cultural and pedagogical-focused action.

President Christopher Eisgruber has previously drawn a

connection between technology’s growing ubiquity and an

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epidemic of mental illness: “The relevant question is not

whether those differences have changed the way that students

learn and live, but rather how they have done so.” This

conclusion is well-supported by research that concludes

college students with high mobile screen times are more

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likely to suffer from depression and a worse quality of

life. An addiction to digital dopamine, some have suggested,

may be the physiological cause behind this relationship.

But rather than — as Eisgruber implored in his 2023 State of

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the University letter — challenging “its own campus

community and pedagogical culture” around how “technology is

changing individuals and society,” Princeton has been

plagued by inaction.

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This is the result of a culture that has made mental health

an individual’s onus, and a university that has yet to

challenge its current educational approach to technology.

Eisgruber has even tasked the very people suffering from

this crisis to solve it, calling on faculty, students, and

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staff to “bring forward new initiatives so that [the]

University can address these issues.” But too much time has

passed without change, and it is now time for the

administration to bring forward solutions.

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Many columnists at The Daily Princetonian have expressed

many times that serious mental health intervention is

lacking on campus. While these voices are right to call out

complacency, they have missed the cause of this negligence:

Princeton blames mental health struggles on the students

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experiencing them.

Digital addictions are pervasive, and Princeton’s insistence

on leaving students to individually foster a healthy

relationship with technology is a disservice to a student

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body whose experience is deeply connected to their screens.

If technology use is so closely related to issues of mental

health, Princeton’s inaction is a direct testament to

lacking mental health support as well. Blaming an individual

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for their mental illness or struggles is not unique to

Princeton; this idea has long manifested as the, albeit

controversial, psychological issue of “personal

responsibility” and can be the result of competitive

cultures that pride themselves on their “if you can’t stand

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the heat, you shouldn’t be here” mentalities.

And while it is debatable whether Princeton experiences

either of those examples, what is clear is that the

University is silent on how students can practically handle

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its intersection with technology.

When pressed on the question of academic rigor and mental

health, for example, President Eisgruber cited drug and

alcohol usage and poor sleep habits as risk factors. What

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followed, however, was not University policy directed at

curbing alcohol and drug consumption, nor improving the

sleep habits of students. His answer appeared to merely cast

blame.

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In fact, during times of high academic stress, like the

night before Dean’s Date, the University has acknowledged

and arguably encouraged sacrificing sleep for school work by

holding events like Residential College Late Night

Breakfast, where food and coffee is served. Even sincere

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attempts to improve mental wellness head-on, like Community

Care Day or RCA study breaks, fail to sufficiently disrupt

Princeton students’ perpetual academic grind by being

optional, supplementary, and sparse.

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So when considering technology’s degradation of mental

health, it appears here, too, will students be left to fend

for themselves. But this cannot be the case.

The digital world has become inseparable from the lives of

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Princeton students and the rest of the world. Most students

use online learning tools in their routine academic

experiences and Princeton encourages its professors to

digitize their pedagogies. I spend hours every week sifting

through and responding to emails, scouring the internet for

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research, reading Canvas notifications, and writing

assignments on my laptop.

Little has been done to reconcile the inseparability of

these healthy uses of technology from the more insidious

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ones. It is also known that effective mental health

interventions from technology — like consistent access to

green spaces and sunlight, as well as short-term digital

detoxes — are often impractical or inaccessible: reunions

tents and fencing, and major construction can block off

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green space and a genuine digital detox would be impossible

on a Canvas and email dominated campus. Princeton students

should not be expected to work out these dilemmas on their

own.

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Some progress has already been made at Harvard University’s

Derek Bok Center for Teaching & Learning, which has released

some initial recommendations for managing technology as a

distraction in the classroom. When I Iooked through the

McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning’s website, I could

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not find a comparable resource. Princeton has a

responsibility to its students to go further: to seriously

engage with its campus culture and pedagogy to recognize

technology’s impact on mental health as a crisis, and solve

it.