Digital environments generate moderate levels of psychological overload among university students

An international research team, led by the University of Warwick and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), in collaboration with Friedrich-Alexander-Universität, recently published a scoping review in the journal Cogent Education. The review analyses the wellbeing of the academic community at universities in an educational environment surrounded by digital tools, in what researchers call “the post-pandemic digital education era”.

The study concludes that, although levels of psychological discomfort have stabilised when compared to critical peaks seen during the pandemic, the digital education scenario still represents a moderate psychological load for students. In addition, the study warns that there is an alarmingly low amount of data on the mental health of lecturers, the very professionals who made digital transition at universities possible.

Stabilising student wellbeing

The research encapsulates the data of seven international transversal studies conducted with a total of 3,744 students and indicates that the psychological discomfort of undergraduate students—measured through indicators of stress, anxiety, depression, insomnia and burnout—is currently at low or moderate levels. This data suggests that the mental health of students in the post-pandemic digital scenario is more stable than during the 2020 emergency situation, in which uncertainty and sudden changes caused the indicators of psychological discomfort to spike.

According to their findings, student satisfaction with digital tools is directly related to better mental health. In addition, in some cases online learning is perceived as a less stressful option when compared to classroom-based or hybrid versions, thanks to its flexibility. Nevertheless, researchers suggest that digital tools help only when they are well structured and easy to use.

Risk factors: "false" omnipresence, digital fatigue and social isolation

Despite this stabilisation, the report points to mental health risk factors. Access to virtual learning environments (VLE) "at any time and place " was described as a "double-edged sword". Although it offers autonomy, it also fosters overexposure and blurs the boundaries between academic and personal life, generating a hyperconnectivity that overburdens students and produces mental fatigue. The pressure of having always to be available and connected to digital environments, technical difficulties in managing new technologies, or too much information at once can generate an increase in technostress, stress associated to the constant use of digital devices.

Not only that, the lack of physical interactions and real social connections continues to be a negative factor within the educational experience, and loneliness once again resurfaces as a risk factor for psychological wellbeing, based on online learning and the abusive use of new technologies.

Insufficient data on lecturers’ mental health

One of the most relevant conclusions of the review is the lack of studies on the wellbeing of lecturers in the post-pandemic stage. Although lecturers were key players in the digital transformation, especially at universities, which were closed for almost two academic years from 2020 to 2022, current research has focused almost exclusively on undergraduate students.

The research team emphasises that support for lecturers is vital to mitigate students' technostress, but that it is still not known how this burden affects the mental health of the lecturers themselves.

Towards a comprehensive institutional approach

The study recommends that universities not only provide technological tools but also adopt a "whole institution" approach. This includes, on the one hand, establishing disconnection policies to schedule time to complete tasks within working hours and ensure scheduled digital disconnection, as well as usage reminders to avoid digital fatigue. On the other hand, carrying out self-management training is also recommended: i.e., helping students acquire the skills needed to manage distractions generated by mobile devices. Similarly, institutional support must be strengthened, since it has been shown that the help of the university and its tutors acts as an essential buffer against technological stress. It is therefore necessary to balance degrees and subjects with specialised support technicians to offer structured solutions that do not overload either students or lecturers.

According to the authors of the research, “post-pandemic digital education is not an emergency measure, but a permanent ecosystem”. Therefore, “there is a need for longitudinal studies that analyse more in depth the impact of digital learning throughout a student’s academic career and that include both lecturers and students, to guarantee a healthy and sustainable educational environment and optimal psychological development capable of mitigating mental fatigue and technostress associated with the abusive use of screens and digital devices", they conclude.

Journal

Cogent Education

DOI

10.1080/2331186X.2026.2652188 

National study finds kratom use is rising

 

More than 5 million people in the U.S. have used kratom in their lifetime, including more than 100,000 children ages 12-17 

A national study of kratom use in the U.S. found rising popularity among young adults, and it is linked to addiction and mental health issues, according to new research from the University of Michigan and Texas State University.

 

This is the first known national study to examine the use patterns of kratom and its association with mental health and addiction, researchers say. Kratom is a plant from southeast Asia that's sold online and in some stores in powders, liquid shots, pills and teas. Opponents of kratom argue that it is addictive and widely available to children, while proponents say it is a safe, natural alternative for managing a host of ailments. 

 

Given the changing policy landscape involving kratom in the U.S., it was an important time to conduct a national study with recent data to examine how many people—including children—use kratom, and its associations with mental health and substance use disorder, said Sean Esteban McCabe, Carol J. Boyd Collegiate Professor in the U-M School of Nursing, and principal investigator. The study appears in the Journal of Addiction Medicine.

 

 Takeaways:

• More than 5 million people in the U.S. say they have used kratom in their lifetime, including more than 100,000 children ages 12-17.  

• Kratom use is at an all-time high and is increasing in the U.S., which is particularly notable given that about half of U.S. states ban or regulate kratom.  

• Most people who have used or currently use kratom have a substance use disorder, report cannabis use, and many have serious psychological distress and major depression.  

• The findings reinforce that policy action is warranted to limit access to kratom by children and that better addiction and mental health treatment is needed.

 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved kratom for any medical use, and federal agencies have warned about potential risks, including addiction and serious side effects. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has also flagged kratom as a drug or chemical of concern, said McCabe, who is also the director of the Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health, or DASH. 

 

Products like 7-OH, or 7-hydroxymitragynine—a synthetic derivative of the kratom plant—are often sold in gas stations, smoke shops and online in tablets, gummies and drinks—can be five to 50 times more potent than regular kratom. It is sometimes marketed as legal morphine.

 

The researchers emphasized that the study does not prove kratom––whose

main psychoactive chemical, mitragynine, comes from the plant's leaves and stems––causes addiction or mental health problems.  Because the survey captures a only a snapshot in time, it cannot determine which came first: kratom use or the mental health symptoms.

 

While the study examined mental health issues, a striking secondary finding was the increase in use, McCabe said. The share of Americans ages 12 and older who said they had ever used kratom rose from 1.6% in 2021 to 1.9% in 2024. 

 

Adults ages 21-34 reported the highest use: About 3.4% said they had used kratom at least once, and about 1% said they used it in the past year.

 

"Policy changes regarding kratom and 7-OH products are needed in all states if we are serious about protecting our children," McCabe said. "Five million people is more than the entire population of the six smallest states in the U.S. combined:––Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, South Dakota, North Dakota and Delaware."

 

Kratom use is likely under-reported in clinical settings because it does not show up on standard drug tests and requires specialized testing, McCabe said. At the same time, rules about kratom vary widely across the U.S.—some states regulate it, while others do not—which can complicate public health and policy decisions, he said.

 

The study analyzed data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health collected from U.S. households from 2021 to 2024. It was supported by grants R01DA031160 and R01DA043691 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.

 

Co-authors include: Ralph Bogan and Nathan Menke, U-M Medical School; Vita McCabe, DASH and U-M Medical School DASH; Kara Dickinson, DASH and Rush University; and Ty Schepis, Texas State University.

 

Study: Kratom use and associations with mental health in the U.S.

Steroid use falls, but creatine use climbs rapidly

Findings dovetail with the trends of 'looksmaxxing' and teen fitness culture

U.S. teens report far less anabolic steroid use than they did two decades ago, but creatine use has risen rapidly in recent years, according to a new University of Michigan study.

 

Combined with declining perceptions of steroid harm and slightly softer disapproval of steroid use, the findings suggest teens may be growing more accepting of muscle-enhancing products, including legal supplements and potentially steroids.

 

"I did this study given the rise in social media trends that glorify toxic gym culture, along with the rise in 'looksmaxxers,'" said study author Philip Veliz, research associate professor with appointments at the U-M School of Nursing and Institute for Social Research. 

 

Looksmaxxing refers to an online subculture and self-improvement practice—often geared toward boys and young men—that focuses on maximizing physical attractiveness, sometimes by extreme measures.

 

The study, published in Annals of Epidemiology, examines trends in past-year steroid use, past-year creatine use and attitudes toward steroid use among U.S. adolescents from 2001 to 2024. Creatine is a naturally occurring compound produced by the body and obtained through diet that supports muscle growth; it is also available as a supplement.

 

Key takeaways

 

• The rapid increase in creatine use among adolescents is concerning because pediatric guidance recommends that adolescents avoid these products due to limited evidence on safety and efficacy in youth.  

• While creatine is legal, its rise may be accompanied by other pre- and post-workout routines that can be harmful for teens, including highly caffeinated pre-workout mixes or energy drinks.  

• The decline in perceived harmfulness of steroids is concerning given the serious health risks associated with steroid use. These declines were greater among boys, which may suggest increased risk for future use.

 

"What surprised me was that steroid use did not increase over the past five years among adolescents," Veliz said. "This is a positive finding, but additional research is needed."

 

What if my teen uses creatine?

 

The rapid rise in creatine use, he said, may reflect the growth of social media influencers—both men and women—who create gym content and share what they do to build muscle, including the use or promotion of supplements. These influencers are sometimes called looksmaxxers, who may promote extreme methods to achieve physical attractiveness. 

 

Interestingly, the study found that girls' creatine use increased 168%, compared with a 90% increase among boys, though boys still made up the largest share of users.

 

Veliz said teen creatine use is not necessarily cause for alarm, but it may be a cautionary signal that someone is using products to enhance muscularity or performance. That could potentially lead to riskier behaviors, including overconsumption of energy drinks, use of other supplements or, in some cases, illegal substances such as steroids.

 

The fact that steroid use is down while creatine use is up points to a shift in the importance of muscularity and fitness among teens, Veliz said. Social media is teeming with influencers peddling these messages. 

 

"What is yet to be determined is whether this will eventually translate into steroid use as they age into young adulthood," he said. 

 

Steroids and attitudes

 

The substantial decline in adolescent steroid use since 2001 may reflect the broader decline in adolescent drug use, Veliz said. Still, it is concerning that perceived harmfulness and disapproval of steroids declined slightly even as use fell.

 

More accepting attitudes, he said, could increase the risk of future use.

 

Gender, body image and looksmaxxing

 

Although looksmaxxing is often framed as an issue affecting boys and men, Veliz said body image pressures affect both boys and girls.

 

"There is a big emphasis on body image regardless of sex, particularly for girls," he said. "Further, many adolescent girls lift weights and try to increase muscularity in gendered ways—for instance, lifting to target leg muscles to increase size or definition."

 

The study drew on nationally representative data from Monitoring the Future, a long-running survey of U.S. adolescents conducted by scientists at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research.

 

Co-authors: Jingze Li, Karam Mattar, Ryan Pero and John Jardine, U-M School of Nursing.

Study: Recent trends in past-year steroid use, past-year creatine use, and attitudes toward steroid use among U.S. adolescents

60% of U.S. teens have tried AI chatbots, 11.4% use them almost daily

 

As AI chatbots become increasingly part of daily life for American teens, a new national study documents widespread exposure to harm. While many use them for school, entertainment and support, researchers warn they may also expose youth to harmful content, encourage risky behavior and blur the line between human and AI relationships. The youngest teens in the study, especially 13 year olds, appeared among the most exposed.

The peer-reviewed study by Florida Atlantic University and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, provides one of the first large-scale looks at how adolescents are using – and being influenced by – rapidly evolving AI chatbots. Researchers examined how often and why teens use these tools, as well as the risks involved, including exposure to unsafe content and whether chatbots may be encouraging problematic behaviors.

They surveyed 3,466 teens – 13 to 17 year olds – nationwide, analyzing usage patterns across demographic groups including gender, race, age and sexual orientation. Researchers also assessed exposure to 13 types of harmful or unsafe interactions, from problematic content to concerning behavioral suggestions, to better understand the risks teens may face and which groups could be more vulnerable.

Results of the study, published in the Journal of Adolescence, reveal that CAI chatbot use is widespread among U.S. teens, with 60.2% reporting they have used one at least once or twice, and about 1 in 20 saying they use them daily. Male teens were significantly more likely than females to report use, and white, African American and multiracial youth reported higher usage rates than Hispanic youth, while no meaningful differences emerged by age or sexual orientation.

Among teens who had used CAI chatbots, entertainment was by far the most common motivation, cited by 85% of users. Many also turned to these tools for more personal reasons, including advice or guidance (65.6%), friendship (60.1%) and even emotional or mental health support (49.2%).

More than one-third reported using chatbots for romantic companionship. Male youth were consistently more likely than female youth to report each of these motivations, and some differences also appeared across race and sexual orientation, particularly in the use of chatbots for emotional support and relationships. The researchers note that CAI chatbots can offer real value to young people, with prior research documenting benefits including educational support, creative exploration, mental health assistance and companionship for those who feel isolated.

At the same time, a substantial share of teens reported troubling interactions. Nearly one-third said a chatbot had asked for personal information that made them uncomfortable, while others described feeling monitored, being drawn into inappropriate conversations or being pressured to reveal secrets.

About 23% said they felt manipulated or pressured by a chatbot and 17% reported that a chatbot shared false information about them. Notably, between 13% and 19% said chatbots had encouraged behaviors with real-world consequences, including unethical or illegal actions, risky activities and even self-harm or suicidal thoughts.

These negative experiences were not evenly distributed, and the youngest teens in the sample were among the most exposed. Higher rates were reported by 13 year olds more than older age groups across multiple harm categories, including being asked for personal information that made them uncomfortable, being pressured to reveal secrets, and being encouraged toward unethical, illegal or risky behavior, as well as self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

“Conversational AI is not inherently dangerous, but it is not yet consistently safe for young people,” said Sameer Hinduja, Ph.D., senior author, a professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice within FAU’s College of Social Work and Criminal Justice, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center, and a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University. “These systems engage, respond and even affirm users in highly personalized ways, which can make their influence especially powerful. For adolescents – who are still developing critical thinking skills and a sense of identity – that can create a situation where they’re more likely to trust, internalize or act on what the chatbot is saying without fully questioning it.”

Findings also show male youth were also more likely to report many of the harms, as were heterosexual youth, a pattern researchers note as counterintuitive given prior work showing higher online risk exposure among LGBTQ+ youth and one that warrants further study. White youth generally reported higher exposure to a range of negative interactions compared to other racial groups.

Overall, nearly half of the teens surveyed – 47.1% – reported experiencing at least one of the 13 risks examined in the study, underscoring the dual nature of CAI chatbots as both widely used tools and potential sources of harm for a significant portion of youth.

The results show that adoption is moving faster than the broader response, as teens increasingly turn to these tools for advice, emotional support and companionship.

“These findings make a strong case for prioritizing youth safety in how conversational AI is built and deployed,” said Hinduja. “When nearly half of young users report experiencing harm, it signals that existing safeguards are falling short. We’re not just talking about isolated incidents. We are seeing patterns that affect a meaningful number of young users, and that is what makes a coordinated response across families, schools and companies so important.”

The researchers also note that AI responses perceived as empathetic or human-like may carry particular weight for adolescent users.

“Adults need to stay engaged and curious about how teens are interacting with AI, creating space for open, judgment-free conversations about both the benefits and the risks,” Hinduja said. “At the same time, we need stronger AI literacy education in schools, content filtering and mental health response protocols designed into these platforms from the start, reliable age verification, and regular independent audits to confirm that safety measures are working as intended. AI is here to stay, so our responsibility is to make sure young people are equipped and protected as they navigate it.”

DOI

10.1002/jad.70164 

No clear evidence that the school smartphone ban policy reduced screentime

 This paper is the first to examine the causal effects of school smartphone bans on the mental health of youth in the US. Time series data show that the mental health of youth has been declining for the past decade. Several researchers argue that easy access to social media and other internet sites provided by smartphones is to blame. 

To provide causal evidence of the effects of these bans, the author relies on synthetic difference-in-difference models and the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) from 2016 to 2024. Currently, there are data for only one state with two post-ban periods and two states with one post-ban period, which makes the results preliminary evidence only. 

The outcome variables are screentime and measures of psychological wellbeing. 

Overall, these early results provide no clear evidence that the school ban policy reduced screentime or improved psychological wellbeing. 

Future studies with additional years of data, when they are available, are needed to increase power and to estimate the longer-term effects of school bans on youth mental health.

Strategic Manipulation of University Grading Systems

 When do university grades permit informative comparisons across courses, and how does transcript adjustment affect student and instructor incentives? A raw grade mixes student performance with course-specific conditions, so grade-only comparisons fail whenever course effects are large enough to reverse ability rankings at grade cutoffs. 

This study shows that full transcripts can recover comparable student signals through what we call eigengrades: course-adjusted reports that use common or externally anchored grading standards and enrollment overlap to identify centered student effects. In the scalar additive benchmark, row-mean, affinity-spectral, and graph-Laplacian methods recover the same object. Eigengrades are, therefore, not a separate source of identification; they are a representation of fixed-effect adjustment. 

The framework also clarifies limits: ordinary letter grades with unanchored course-specific cutoffs do not separate course difficulty from grading standards, and multidimensional transcripts identify a skill-match subspace rather than a unique universal ranking unless the institution specifies a benchmark. 

Finally, exact difficulty adjustment removes the direct report-mediated incentive to choose easier courses and eliminates a competitive enrollment channel behind grade inflation, while leaving other strategic and governance margins intact.

Lessons from the First Statewide Mandate on School Start Times

This study examines the impact of California’s Senate Bill 328 (SB 328), the first statewide mandate requiring later school start times for middle and high schools, on adolescent sleep, mental health, and academic outcomes. 

The authors find that SB 328 increased the share of students sleeping at least 8 hours per night by 13%, meeting the CDC-recommended minimum for this age group. 

Average mental health effects are imprecisely estimated, but boys show significant reductions in sadness, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation, and Hispanic students, who experienced the largest sleep-timing shifts, show parallel reductions in difficulty concentrating; together these patterns are consistent with a dose-response relationship between sleep improvement and mental well-being. 

Math and English scores in grade 8 improved by approximately 0.08–0.10 standard deviations, with the largest gains among Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students. 

A within-state analysis using teachers’ commute arrival times as a proxy for pre-policy school start times corroborates these findings, and shows academic gains accumulating over 2023–2025 alongside a suggestive decline in high school dropout rates. 

The absence of effects on chronic absenteeism rules out an attendance-driven mechanism, pointing instead to the direct cognitive benefits of aligning school schedules with adolescents’ biological rhythms.