EDITORS' CORNER
OPINION: Sure, coloring books and Play-Doh are fun. But when it comes to student stress, campus leaders need to focus on helping students find real value in life.
A University of St. Thomas professor recently asked 80,000 college students about their mental health to gain a better understanding of how humans flourish.
Her two biggest answers can be summed up quite simply: Friendships and hard work.
To some, those results may seem painfully obvious. But are they really that apparent to everyone? Consider how many campuses offer Play-Doh, toy blocks, and even scream sessions to help students de-stress.
Writing at The Conversation this week, psychology Professor Roxanne Prichard described the results of her large-scale study with tens of thousands of college students across the U.S. and Canada.
Published in September, the study found that the “strongest factor connected to student flourishing was remarkably ordinary: spending time with other people,” Prichard wrote.
“Students who spent more hours socializing with friends, attending student organizations and participating in cultural events tended to report feeling an overall sense of well-being,” she wrote.
More surprising to her research team was the second highest factor: work.
“Students who spent more time on obligations, including paid work and unpaid family responsibilities, also tended to report a greater sense of well-being,” she wrote.
The researchers came to the conclusion by asking students a variety of questions about their free time, substance use, finances, relationships, sleep, screen time, discrimination, stress, and more, according to her article.
“We also examined how students spent their free time, whether that meant exercising, studying, socializing, meditating, playing video games or scrolling on social media,” she wrote.
Why it matters, according to Prichard:
Between 2010 and 2022, the percentage of U.S. high school seniors who reported seeing friends face-to-face almost every day declined from 44% to 32%.
Against this backdrop, mental health challenges among young people have become an increasing public health concern.
Suicide remains the second-leading cause of death among Americans ages 15 to 34.
What Prichard and her team found was that “exercise, avoiding alcohol or even getting enough sleep” are not as important to students’ well-being as the amount of time they put into work and relationships, she wrote.
“Our results raise an intriguing possibility: Well-being may come not only from leisure and self-care but also from contributing to something larger than oneself,” Prichard wrote.
It’s a conclusion that any of my grandparents (none of whom were college educated, one didn’t even finish high school) could have produced without much thought.
But that’s not to dismiss the value of Professor Prichard’s study. What she found is a needed reminder — and not just for the ivory tower campus administrators, but also for a generation who never knew life without cell phones or the internet. (For more insight, check out our College Fix student journalists’ videos here and here.)
It’s also the generation that colleges treat like preschoolers, offering everything from toys and coloring books, to yoga and ice cream, to easier grades, in the name of students’ mental health. (And do not read this as a dismissal of mental health disorders. Students who are suffering deserve access to good counseling and medical care.)
Friendships and hard work aren’t easy, but they give life meaning in ways that few other things can.
So, let’s get back to the basics. College campuses can start by cutting all their infantilizing programs and turn their focus instead to the things that costs much less but hold exponentially more value.
MORE: University will allow students to opt out of anti-stress program … if they’re too stressed
