How can mobile games like “Candy Crush,” “Honor of Kings,” and “Pokémon GO” lead to unhealthy habits that affect daily routines, career success, and even personal relationships?

That’s what Assistant Professor Cheng “Chris” Chen, herself once a fan of the popular games, started asking when they debuted a few years back.

“Mobile games can be harmful if users derive no pleasure from gameplay and instead use them as an escape from non-game-related life troubles,” says Chen, who joined the Elon University faculty in 2022 to teach communication design and media analytics.

Psychological factors like loneliness, leisure boredom, and self-control, as well as interface features that enable lurking, broadcasting, and community-building, all influence mobile media usage and an individual’s digital well-being. “Users should not shoulder all the blame for becoming addicted to a particular technology because, well, sometimes the technology itself is designed to be addictive,” she says.

Chen also studies the effects of Instagram and how social platforms incorporate features like content recommendations. She hypothesizes that shared interface features – for example, “prizes” or other special tools bestowed at random intervals – contribute to the addictive natures of both mobile gaming and social media apps alike.

What can be done to lower personal risk of social media and mobile gaming addiction? Chen, whose scholarship has appeared in journals such as New Media & Society and Social Media + Society, offers several recommendations:

  • Secure your phone in a pocket or bag instead of keeping it readily available.
  • Reduce your frequency of posting photos and videos on social media.
  • If mobile games are your preferred option for stress relief, select games with social features that encourage interaction while keeping controls simple, such as “Pokémon GO.”

Mobile media addiction isn’t Chen’s only area of scholarly interest. She’s turned her attention to algorithmic bias found in AI and generative AI, its impact on minority communities, and diminished opportunities in employment and education for groups harmed by AI’s reinforced stereotypes.

“It is crucial to step up efforts to communicate and combat algorithmic bias,” Chen says of her emerging area of expertise. “Doing so will pave the way for a more inclusive and welcoming tech landscape that benefits everyone.”