The team will recruit from ten Bradford secondary schools, and involve around 4,000 students across the academic years 8, 9 and 10, covering ages 12-15.
A bespoke app loaded onto the teenagers’ smartphones will cap each participant’s total social media use per day, and block all social media use at nighttime.
The research will be implemented on all social media apps commonly used by this age group, from TikTok to Snapchat and Instagram, but not messaging apps such as WhatsApp.*
Current plans are to limit participants to one hour of social media a day, and block it completely between 9pm and 7am, although this is subject to change.
Half the school year groups will be randomly allocated this daily social media restriction and nighttime curfew, and the results will be compared to the remaining year groups in the trial who have no limits on social media use.
I wonder how they’re handling recruiting/incentivizing participants. Seems like it would be hard to get 4000 15 year olds from the same school system to consent to phone restrictions.