Education reform student and professor find that social media also affects students in developing countries
Sometimes the best collaborations start with disagreements in class discussions.
In a graduate Politics of Education class at the University of Arkansas in fall 2025, Professor Robert Maranto sparked a debate about the potential negative effects of social media on student well-being. Maranto theorized that these impacts would primarily affect students in developed countries, as they have ample time to spend online.
However, one of Maranto's students, Juwel Sarker, disagreed. Sarker, who had previously taught in Bangladesh, observed that many students there spent several hours daily on their phones, negatively impacting their studies, jobs, and personal relationships.
To settle the dispute, Maranto proposed that Sarker survey young people at a Bangladeshi university, analyze the data, and compare the results with Maranto's findings. The collaboration led to a paper published in Discovery Psychology titled "Social media impacts on Bangladeshi college students." The study found that smartphone usage time negatively affects the mental health of college students in Bangladesh, but the relationship differs from that in the United States.
High levels of social media use correlate with reduced time spent studying and socializing in person, leading to increased academic and social stress.
The authors caution that the findings are correlational and tentative, emphasizing the need for more research with different samples to confirm their results. Maranto, who supports adversarial collaborations, believes that disagreements between professors can lead to valuable research.
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