Spontaneous mind wandering linked to heavier social smartphone use

New research published in Psychological Reports indicates that people who frequently experience spontaneous mind wandering also tend to be more preoccupied with the online world and use their smartphones more for social purposes. The findings suggest that this link is influenced by a mental tendency called online vigilance, and that mindfulness might weaken the connection.

The authors of the new study wanted to better understand how smartphone use relates to attention. They were especially interested in how different types of mind wandering—spontaneous and deliberate—relate to smartphone behavior.

Past studies found that people who mind-wander more also report higher smartphone use, but these were based on surveys rather than real-world use data. The current research aimed to investigate whether these findings would hold true using objective, recorded smartphone activity, and to explore how online vigilance and mindfulness might explain or influence the connection.

The study focused on U.S. undergraduate students and took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when many students were learning remotely and likely using smartphones heavily. Researchers recruited 188 iPhone users to take part in an online survey. Participants completed several questionnaires assessing their tendency to mind-wander, their overall mindfulness, and their level of online vigilance. They also provided screenshots of their iPhone screen time settings, which showed their actual weekly smartphone use across different app categories.

To measure mind wandering, the researchers used both a general questionnaire and scales that separated spontaneous (unintentional) and deliberate (intentional) mind wandering. They also measured mindfulness using a well-established inventory suited for people without meditation experience. Online vigilance was assessed with a 12-item scale that captured how much participants think about, monitor, and react to online content.

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The smartphone data captured average daily use, number of pickups and notifications, and weekly use across app categories such as social media, entertainment, games, education, and health. Researchers paid special attention to the “Social” category, which includes apps used for messaging and viewing others’ content, like Instagram and TikTok.

The results showed that participants spent more time in the Social app category than any other. On average, they spent over 17 hours per week using social media, significantly more than time spent on entertainment or productivity apps. This pattern mirrors findings from other studies and reflects the central role social media plays in the daily lives of many college students.

The most notable findings involved the relationships among spontaneous mind wandering, online vigilance, and social smartphone use. Participants who scored higher in spontaneous mind wandering also had higher levels of online vigilance. In turn, those with higher online vigilance reported greater use of social apps.

This suggests that when people frequently have self-generated thoughts unrelated to their current task—particularly those that arise unintentionally—they may become more mentally preoccupied with their online lives, leading them to use their smartphones more for social purposes.

Statistical analysis confirmed that online vigilance helped explain the link between spontaneous mind wandering and social smartphone use. That is, people who tend to mind-wander spontaneously may be more mentally tuned in to the online world, which then predicts more time spent on social apps. This pattern was not observed for deliberate mind wandering, which involves intentionally letting the mind drift. This distinction highlights that unintentional mental drift may be more strongly tied to smartphone habits than purposeful daydreaming.

The researchers also explored the role of mindfulness. Although mindfulness did not directly relate to how much time people spent on their smartphones, it did influence the strength of the relationship between online vigilance and social smartphone use. People with higher levels of mindfulness were less likely to translate their online vigilance into increased social smartphone use. In other words, even if someone had frequent online thoughts, those with higher mindfulness appeared more able to resist the impulse to engage with their smartphones.

This protective effect of mindfulness was especially evident among participants with the highest mindfulness scores. For these individuals, high levels of online vigilance did not lead to significantly higher social smartphone use, suggesting that mindfulness may offer some buffer against technology overuse driven by mental preoccupation.

In addition to testing their main model, the researchers explored whether smartphone notifications—the external pings and alerts that draw users back in—might also relate to increased smartphone use. They found that notifications were linked to both the number of phone pickups and social app use. There was also some evidence that notifications might influence social smartphone use indirectly by sparking spontaneous mind wandering, which then increased online vigilance. However, this pathway appeared weaker than the main findings linking internal mental states to smartphone behavior.

However, because the study used a correlational design, the researchers cannot determine whether spontaneous mind wandering causes online vigilance or social smartphone use, or whether the direction goes the other way. It’s possible that frequent smartphone use could increase online vigilance and lead to more spontaneous mind wandering. In fact, additional analyses supported this reverse pathway as a plausible explanation. The researchers also did not measure the content of participants’ mind-wandering thoughts, so it remains unclear how many of them were actually about social media or online activities.

Future research could use experience sampling methods—brief surveys sent to participants’ phones throughout the day—to track real-time thoughts and behaviors more accurately. Experimental studies could also investigate how people with different levels of mind wandering or mindfulness respond in controlled settings that simulate real-life distractions.

The study, “Spontaneous Mind Wandering and Smartphone Use,” was authored by Lara L. Jones, Gregory A. Norville, and Zachary I. Wunder.