# Unlocking Mental Health: Exploring College Students' Well-being through Smartphone Behaviors

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.08766 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.08766/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 4 of its 37 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Feb 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- ['I Just Want to Hack Myself to Not Get Distracted': Evaluating Design Interventions for Self-Control on Facebook](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.04180/) (2020)
- [Generalization and Personalization of Mobile Sensing-Based Mood Inference Models: An Analysis of College Students in Eight Countries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.03009/) (2022)
- [Smartphone Sensing for the Well-being of Young Adults: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.09559/) (2020)
- [Digital Wellbeing Redefined: Toward User-Centric Approach for Positive Social Media Engagement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.05723/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Predicting and Understanding College Student Mental Health with Interpretable Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.08002/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The global mental health crisis is a pressing concern, with college students particularly vulnerable to rising mental health disorders. The widespread use of smartphones among young adults, while offering numerous benefits, has also been linked to negative outcomes such as addiction and regret, significantly impacting well-being. Leveraging the longest longitudinal dataset collected over four college years through passive mobile sensing, this study is the first to examine the relationship between students' smartphone unlocking behaviors and their mental health at scale in real-world settings. We provide the first evidence demonstrating the predictability of phone unlocking behaviors for mental health outcomes based on a large dataset, highlighting the potential of these novel features for future predictive models. Our findings reveal important variations in smartphone usage across genders and locations, offering a deeper understanding of the interplay between digital behaviors and mental health. We highlight future research directions aimed at mitigating adverse effects and promoting digital well-being in this population.