The rapid rise in smartphone screen time around the globe has sparked serious concerns about its effects on mental health, especially among young adults. Studies have shown that excessive screen time can contribute to anxiety, depression, and sleeping disorders. However, there's still a lack of evidence from the MENA region and social marketing studies/interventions targeting screen time reduction remain scarce. This study aims to fill those gaps by looking into smartphone usage habits among Egyptian university students and testing out different screentime management tools and nudges (i.e. Widget, App timer, Notifications off) to help reduce screen time and boost mental well-being. The study employed a longitudinal quasi-experimental design, lasting for 10 weeks. The sample included 80 university students from Egypt. Mental well-being was measured using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS). Initial findings indicate that 77.8% of participants reported averaging more than 6 hours of screen time per day, mostly spent on social media (92.5%), and 23.2% showed signs of clinical depression. Analysis is on-going, more findings will be available at the time of the conference. Moreover, a post-study focus group was conducted to better understand screentime patterns and help in interpretation of findings from target audience perceptions.
This study offers fresh insights by: (1) providing empirical data on the relationship between screen time and mental health in Egypt, (2) testing the effectiveness of affordable behavioural nudges available on all smartphone devices and (3) contribute to the gap in literature in terms of research on digital well-being in MENA region. The findings will provide useful practical implications for social marketing interventions aiming to promote healthy screentime habits.