Recruiting

Mindfulness Meditation & Exercise

Sponsor:

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Code:

NCT07097545

Conditions

Social Media Addiction

Anxiety

Depression Disorder

Wellbeing

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18+

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Interventions

Mindfulness

Social Media Reduction

Exercise

Study Details

Brief summary:

The investigators will be randomizing 300 college student participants with high levels of social media use into either a 1) control condition (no intervention), a 2) mindfulness meditation cognitive intervention, or 3) a social media reduction + exercise replacement intervention. Participants complete intervention activities daily for two weeks. The investigators will collect self-report and behavioral measures of social media use and related psychological constructs at three time points: baseline, immediately after the intervention period, and one-week after the intervention period (three weeks from baseline).

Conditions

Social Media Addiction

Anxiety

Depression Disorder

Wellbeing

Study ID

NCT07097545

Start date

Aug 24, 2025

Status verified date

Dec, 2025

Completion date

Jan, 2027

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Dec, 2026

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18+

Healthy Volunteers: Accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • The participant is 18 or older.
  • The participant must be a Johns Hopkins University student.
  • Owning an iPhone or Android smartphone, with frequent use of social media use daily (>

1 hour)
  • Enabling and sharing screenshots of the participant's smartphone use metrics, including number of last-week pickups, notifications received, and average screen time.
  • Providing consent to participate.
  • Only exercising 1 hour or less daily, on average.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • younger than 18
  • Not a Johns Hopkins University Student
  • Doesn't own a smart phone
  • Uses smartphone less than 1 hour daily
  • Exercises more than 1 hour daily

Study Design

Enrollment

300 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Treatment

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

no intervention: Control

Participants will not receive an intervention. Participants will receive instructions to use social media use as usual.

experimental: Mindfulness

Approximately 15 minute mindfulness style meditations will be completed daily for two weeks through the Calm platform. Participants can listen to the exercise on the web-enabled version of Calm, or through the smartphone app. The first course is entitled "7 Days of Gratitude" and centers around noticing and appreciating things in daily life, the second course is entitled "7 Days of managing stress" that focuses on building awareness and coping with that specific area of mental stress, such as de-escalating stress, mind-body connection, strong emotions, negative self-talk, and how events are interpreted.

experimental: Social Media Reduction + Exercise

Participants will reduce social media use by at least 30 minutes daily for two weeks. Simultaneously, participants will exercise at least 30 minutes daily. Participants are given examples of common exercises (walking, yoga, strength training, etc.), but are allowed to choose any type, although dissuaded from activities with high potential for injury.

Interventions

Mindfulness

15 minute daily guided meditation

Social Media Reduction

Reduce social media use at least 30 minutes daily and exercise instead

Exercise

Participants will exercise at least 30 minutes daily. Participants are given examples of common exercises (walking, yoga, strength training, etc.), but are allowed to choose any type, although dissuaded from activities with high potential for injury.

Primary outcome measure

  • Change in Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale - 21 (DASS-21) [ Time Frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week ]
  • Change in World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQoLBREF) scale [ Time Frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week ]
  • Change in smartphone screen time (minutes) for social media use [ Time Frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week ]
  • Change in number of social media use smartphone pick-ups [ Time Frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week ]
  • Change in percent of time using social media [ Time Frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week ]
  • Change in social media use notifications received [ Time Frame: baseline, immediately post intervention, post intervention up to one week ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Johannes Thrul, PhD

(443) 318-6633‬jthrul@jhu.edu

Locations

Johns Hopkins University

Recruiting

Baltimore, Maryland, United States, 21218

More Information

Sponsor

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Last update posted

Dec 17, 2025

Last verified

Dec, 2025

Keywords

  • digital media reduction intervention
  • mindfulness
  • behavioral intervention
  • digital wellbeing

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health on 2025-12-17.