Six in ten young Quebec adults who use social media feel they spend too much time on it. Yet
the NETendances 2026 survey from Université Laval found a surprising gap: among people who
share that feeling, only one in three actually spends more time on social media than the average
for their age group. The discomfort seems to have less to do with the number of hours than with
how those hours are experienced, and in particular with the sense of having chosen to open an
app or, on the contrary, of having ended up there without quite knowing why.
This nuance is the focus of the second article in TCCT's Let's Talk to Connect campaign, run in
support of the mission of Le CIEL, which raises young people's awareness of digital issues and
promotes healthy, balanced screen use. The first article looked at recommendation algorithms;
this one turns to the other side of the screen, namely the intention of the person holding it. In our
view, screen time is less of a problem than autopilot, the mechanical way of reaching for a
phone that puts it in hand before any decision to use it has been made.
Screen time has the advantage of being easy to measure, and phones even break it down by
app. That breakdown offers a first clue, since an hour spent on TikTok or Instagram is rarely an
online class. Still, it leaves part of the story out. An hour on Instagram can go to talking with
family and friends as easily as to scrolling through posts no one chose, and an hour on YouTube
can be a tutorial someone searched for or a string of videos queued up by autoplay.
Research runs into the same limit. In 2019, a team at the University of Oxford analyzed data
from more than 355,000 American and British teenagers. Screen time explained at most 0.4%
of the differences in well-being between them. To put that figure in perspective, the researchers
compared it with other habits: regularly eating potatoes was almost as strongly linked to
well-being, and wearing glasses was linked even more strongly. Since nobody sees potatoes or
glasses as a threat to mental health, the comparison shows that a number of hours, taken on its
own, cannot reveal whether those hours are helping or harming.
There are two main ways of picking up a phone. The first starts with a specific goal, such as
replying to a message or checking a bus schedule. In the second, a cue such as a lull or a
notification triggers the gesture, and the hand moves before any decision is made. This is how
habits work: through repetition, a cue ends up prompting an action without passing through
conscious thought. What follows depends a great deal on that starting point. With a goal, the
session has a natural end, since once the message is sent or the schedule checked, the phone
goes back in the pocket. Without one, nothing signals when to stop, and the app supplies what
comes next, one piece of content after another, often until something outside interrupts the
scrolling. The habit mechanism, so useful in daily life, is therefore much less helpful when it
leads into apps designed to hold attention.
A team at the University of Washington studied this phenomenon in 2018. For two weeks, 45
adults reported throughout their day why they were using their phone. Moments driven by a goal
were rated as more meaningful than those spent passing the time, regardless of the app.
Intention also often faded along the way: present in 66% of cases when an app was opened, it
remained in only 51% of cases a little later, and the slide was steepest on social media.
Platform design, the subject of our first article, partly explains this slide. A book is divided into
chapters and a show ends with credits, natural pauses that leave room to decide whether to
keep going. Infinite scroll and autoplay remove these stopping points, so the next piece of
content arrives before the question can even come up.
For students, phones and laptops are first and foremost work tools, which can serve for taking
notes, reading course material or coordinating group projects. Trouble starts when an activity
unrelated to the task slips into the middle of a lecture or a study session. Attention does not
really split between two activities. It switches from one to the other, and each switch takes effort
to pick up the thread again. Off-topic browsing during class is in fact associated with lower exam
results, even among motivated students.
Notifications create the same back-and-forth. Each one diverts attention from the task at hand,
even when the choice is made not to answer it, and the thread then has to be picked up where it
was left.
Outside of school, the same app can serve both a clear intention and autopilot. In Quebec, the
most common reason given for using social media is staying in touch with loved ones, cited by
74% of users according to NETendances. That time has real value, and there is no reason to
count it as lost. Social media is also used "to pass the time," a reason given by just over half of
18- to 34-year-olds, and this is mostly where habit takes over.
Taking a break on a phone is not a problem in itself. Participants in the University of Washington
study actually found a break taken to step away from a stressful moment more beneficial than
one taken to escape boredom.
Time does not disappear from the equation, though. When screens cut into sleep, physical
activity or in-person conversations, duration becomes an issue again, and it becomes more
useful to ask what the screen has replaced than to aim for a number of hours.
● Naming the reason before unlocking. Putting into a few words what the phone is being
picked up for makes it easier to notice the moment that purpose drifts away.
● Building in stopping points. Playlists, the "Watch later" feature, deciding on a single
episode or a simple timer give an ending back to content that no longer has one.
● Grouping the checks. Reading messages and emails at chosen times, rather than at
every notification, limits task switching and leaves attention where it was.
None of these habits requires cutting down on screen time; they mostly help make sure that
time matches what the phone was picked up for. Let's share our own reasons for using digital
tools with #TelferLetsTalk.
● Le CIEL: founded in 2019, the only Canadian organization fully dedicated to young
people's digital well-being, offering prevention workshops in schools.
● Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines: recommendations on sleep, physical activity
and recreational screen time for adults.
● University of Ottawa, health and wellness: health and wellness services for students.
Student Wellness can be reached at 613-562-5777.
● Good2Talk: free, confidential and bilingual helpline for Ontario post-secondary students,
available 24/7 at 1-866-925-5454.