A comparison of self-report and objective measurements of smartphone and social media usage

Abstract

Smartphone and social media research continue to be plagued by concerns regarding their dependence on self-report measures of usage. Specifically, the extent to which self-report measures of usage reflect actual objective usage continues to be questioned and warrants further investigation. Thus, the purpose of this study was to leverage mobile data donation (specifically iPhone Screen Time data) to evaluate single estimates and behavioural scales of smartphone and social media usage against objective measures of smartphone and mobile social media usage. Findings of the current study suggest that despite differences in single estimates and objective smartphone use data, single estimates do show moderate agreement and association with objective data. Conversely, single estimates of mobile social media use and smartphone pickups displayed questionable to poor agreement and association with objective data, suggesting reduced reliability. Finally, self-report behavioural scales (i.e., problematic use, nomophobia, fear of missing out, phubbing) showed mostly negligible and non-significant associations with objective data. The findings of this study, in conjunction with the existing but limited research in this area, have a number of methodological implications for future smartphone and social media research and with regard to interpretations of findings from existing research.