College students’ daily mind wandering is related to lower social well-being

Abstract

Objective: This study sought to examine how daily mind wandering is related to loneliness, felt connection to others, and school belonging among college students. Participants: Three samples (n = 209, n = 173, and n = 266) from two US campuses were recruited. Methods: Data were collected via ecological momentary assessment over the course of two academic quarters in one sample and an academic semester in two samples. Results: Social well-being declined throughout the academic term in all samples. Lower day-to-day mind wandering predicted lower loneliness at the next time point and was concurrently related to a higher felt connection to others and higher school belonging. Thoughts about the past and future were associated with lower social well-being than present-focused thoughts. Conclusions: This study supports the proposition that promoting present-centered attention can benefit college students’ social well-being and alleviate their feelings of loneliness and isolation that they often experience.

Keywords:

• Ecological momentary assessment
• loneliness
• mind wandering
• social connection
• social well-being

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States and received approval from the Institutional Review Boards of The University of Washington and Carnegie Mellon University.

Data availability statement

The data, analysis scripts, and materials are available at Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/hq72x/.

Notes

1 The minimum possible value for the one-item mind wandering measure was zero (a participant did not report any mind wandering throughout the study), and the maximum possible value was four (a participant reported mind wandering in each EMA survey).

2 The hidden curriculum refers to the unspoken norms, values, and beliefs prevalent in affluent and upper-middle-class White contexts, which are conveyed to students through schooling and are less accessible to those who did not grow up in similar environments.⁵¹

Additional information

Funding

This research has been funded by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number IIS7974751, EDA-2009977, CHS-2016365, and CHS-1941537; the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research under Grant Number 90DPGE0003-01; Carnegie Mellon University Office of the Provost, University of Washington College of Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering, and School of Computer Science & Engineering; Samsung Research America Inc.; Google LLC.