Transforming campus culture through common rooms
This spring, we ran a JOMO digital well-being pilot in Virginia Tech’s West End dining hall with wonderful success.
In this large central common area, we hung large scale banner sets building awareness, inspiration and educating students on the JOMO (joy of missing out) ethos and why digital well-being matters.
JOMO phone boxes with conversation cards decks were placed throughout the space as invitations to students to unplug, engage in conversation and give their brains a break.
“The iPhone effect study, and the many replications of it, has been the basis for putting phones out of sight and many interventions across the world like the JOMO(box).”
More than 50% of survey respondents used the box with 37% using it multiple times.
Students liked the reminders “to be present,” “how [VT] is encouraging disconnecting to reconnect,” and thought the conversation cards paired with the phone boxes were “good way to get people engaged with each other.”
The JOMO common room intervention is helping build new student social norms by making it okay to not be on your phone.
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