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The number of university students exhibiting mental health concerns have surged considerably in the past decade. Amongst a number of potential contributing factors, this study aims to assess the role of a broader societal phenomenon; the shift in emphasis in our interactions from the physical to the virtual environments. Specifically, a decrease in nature contact and a contrasting increase in smartphone use are identified as two pathways in which this shift may impact negatively on mental health. Previous research evidences both facets as consistent correlates of depression, although limited research extends these associations to the student population or attempts to establish an interaction between the two.

The current study recruited a sample of 380 first-year undergraduate students, via an online survey, to assess if problematic smartphone use (SAS-SV) and nature contact (NCQ) were significant predictors of depression (PHQ-9).

Nature contact frequency and smartphone use were significant predictors of depression.

This is the first study to concurrently assess the impact of smartphone use and nature contact in a student population.

The purpose of this research is to understand what motivates 7–11-year-old children to participate in online brand communities (OBCs). Prior research has concentrated on prescriptive product categories (games and gaming), predominantly adolescent groups and the social aspects of community engagement and actual behaviour within communities, rather than the motivations to participate with the OBC. This has ultimately limited what has been gleaned, both theoretically and managerially, from this important segment.

An interpretive, longitudinal position is adopted, using a sample of 261 children (113 male and 148 female) from across the UK, using event-based diaries over a 12-month period, generating 2,224 entries.

Data indicate that children are motivated to participate in a brand community for four reasons: to support and ameliorate pre-purchase anxieties, resolve interpersonal conflicts, exact social dominance in terms of product ownership and perceptions of product knowledge and to actively engage in digitalised pester power. The study also reveals that certain motivational aspects such as conflict resolution and exacting dominance, are gender-specific.

Knowledge of children’s motivation to engage with OBCs is important for marketers and brand managers alike as the data reveal markedly different stimuli when compared to known adult behaviours in the field. Given the nature of the study, scope exists for significant future research.

The study reveals behaviours that will assist brand managers in further understanding the complex and untraditional relationships that children have with brands and OBCs.

This study makes a novel examination of a hitherto little-explored segment of consumers. In doing so, it uncovers the theoretical and practical characteristics of child consumers that contemporary, adult-focussed literature does not recognise. The paper makes an additional contribution to theory by positing four new behavioural categories relating to community engagement – dependers, defusers, demanders and dominators – and four new motivational factors which are fundamentally different from adult taxonomies – social hegemony, parental persuasion, dilemma solving and conflict resolution.