Lena Song, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 

Self-Command and Screen-Time: Evidence from an Educational Intervention

Concerns about the impact of smartphones and social media have risen alongside their widespread adoption. Education is among the most proposed policy responses, yet no program has been rigorously evaluated. This paper studies whether classroom instruction can help students develop the awareness and skills needed to manage their digital technology use. Building on the idea of self-command—the ability to align behavior with reasoned, long-term intentions—we design and evaluate a classroom-based curriculum that supports more intentional use of smartphones and social media. The program was delivered as a multi-week, evidence-based course in Indian colleges and evaluated through a randomized controlled trial combining surveys with high-frequency smartphone data. We find that the program reduced social media use and increased adoption of tools to manage phone habits. Treated students reported lower perceived digital addiction, reduced social comparison, and modest improvements in sleep quality. They also showed improved ability to identify false information online. These findings suggest that education can influence both how individuals engage with digital technologies and how they evaluate the information they encounter online.