Combining Short-term Online Mindfulness with Natural Sounds to Reduce Pre-Sleep Problematic Social Media Use: A Cross-over Randomized Control Trial. (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Pre-sleep problematic social media use (PSMU) among tertiary students has been shown to impair sleep quality, academic performance, and daytime functioning, highlighting the urgent need for effective interventions. OBJECTIVE This study was designed to assess whether short-term online interventions, such as one or two weeks of mindfulness-based intervention (MBI), natural sounds (NS), or their combination, could effectively alleviate pre-sleep PSMU among college students. METHODS The experiment adopted a randomized 2×2 crossover design. Participants were 154 students enrolled at a university in China, ranging in age from 17 to 24 years (mean 18.78, SD 0.79). The sample consisted of 92 females (59.74%), 54 males (35.06%), and 8 individuals (5.19%) who opted not to disclose their gender. During the first week, participants were randomly allocated to one of two groups: the MBI (N = 78) or the NS intervention (N = 76). In the second week, each group was further randomized: the week-one mindfulness group was divided into Group A (M+M) and Group B (M+N), while the week-one NS group was divided into Group C (N+N) and Group D (N+M). RESULTS Both the MBI and NS led to significant short-term reductions in pre-sleep PSMU after one week (mindfulness: t(50) = -2.59, p = .012, Hedges’ g = -0.32; natural sounds: t(46) = -3.74, p < .001, Hedges’ g = -0.50). Over the two-week period, two weeks of NS produced a marginal effect (p = .078). Group A showed no significant change (W0–W2: t = –0.24, p = .81), whereas Group B produced significant improvement (W0–W2: t = 2.27, p = .025, 95% CI [0.42, 6.10]). Group C showed a marginal effect (W0–W2: t = 1.77, p = .078), while Group D yielded the largest gain (W0–W2: t = 2.72, p = .007, 95% CI [1.09, 6.91]). CONCLUSIONS One week of online MBI or NS significantly alleviated pre-sleep PSMU among college students. However, two weeks of MBI did not yield significant results. Two weeks of NS produced a marginal effect, warranting further investigation. Importantly, the combined two-week intervention of MBI and NS demonstrated significant improvements, effectively alleviating pre-sleep PSMU among Chinese university students.