Research & Funding

"Students need to use the internet to support their studies and are a group identified with low wellbeing and high loneliness. Re-Connect is a workshop that has been developed in MTU in response to research findings that highlight difficulties caused by problematic internet use for students. The workshop is being rolled out in MTU and aims to support students in developing awareness of their internet use and its affects. The workshop also enables students with tools which can help to develop healthy internet habits or redesign habits that are causing them problems. The workshop to date has got excellent feedback from staff and student participants and aligns exactly with the government strategy for healthy campuses. Student problematic internet use can be addressed in a way that few other issues affecting health and wellbeing are. The workshop has been developed to address a student need as evidenced by research, it is a university cross collaboration, developed with student input, honed with professional expertise empowers students to redesign those habits for wellbeing and academic performance. This workshop is designed for lecturers who might want to deliver the Re-Connect workshop with their students. This workshop was delivered by Oonagh O’Brien and Catherine Murphy, who gave an overview of the Re-Connect programme, the research that drove its development and they shared resources and facilitation techniques to enable delivery of Re-Connect to student groups. "