Investigation the Intervention Mitigating Problematic Social Media Engagement Among High School Students
Luqian Wang and Yi-Teng Shih
Adolescents of 21st century mature in an advancing digital era, where their vulnerabilities are often
exposed to a world driven by powerful algorithms. The present study proposes an innovative design
scheme that potentially tackles problematic engagement with social media, from both motivational and
neurobiological perspectives, with the aim of unveiling the underlying mechanisms regarding social
media addiction. This design solution promotes transparency of individuals’ personal usage behaviours
through a simple prompt, “why are you here?”, thereby activating individual’s deliberate decisionmaking system. In study I, we conducted a two-phase survey involving 92 high school teenagers and
collected empirical data on the correlations between goal-oriented social media use and mental health
variables. In addition, a practical design intervention was developed and assessed with 36 participants
over ten days to validate its effectiveness. The consequences indicated notable reductions in actual
social media engagement time, as well as a decrease in distractedness. This research offers a novel
motivation-driven digital behaviour and contributes to the existing empirical database on social media
addiction by providing both theoretical insights and practical applications.
