There is widespread public and academic interest in understanding the uses and effects of digital media. Scholars primarily use self-report measures of the quantity or duration of media use as proxies for more objective measures, but the validity of these self-reports remains unclear. Advancements in data collection techniques have produced a collection of studies indexing both self-reported and log-based measures. To assess the alignment between these measures, we conducted a meta-analysis of this research. Based on 106 effect sizes, we found that self-reported media use only moderately correlates with logged measurements, that self-reports were rarely an accurate reflection of logged media use, and that measures of problematic media use show an even smaller association with usage logs. These findings raise concerns about the validity of findings relying solely on self-reported measures of media use. The materials needed to reproduce the analysis and an article preprint are available at: https://osf.io/dhx48/.

Using Apple’s Screen Time application to obtain reported actual iPhone and social media (SM) use, we examined the accuracy of retrospective estimates of usage, how inaccuracies bias associations between use and psychosocial well-being (depression, loneliness, and life satisfaction), and the degree to which inaccuracies were predicted by levels of well-being. Among a sample of 325 iPhone users, we found that (a) participants misestimated their weekly overall iPhone and SM use by 19.1 and 12.2 hours, respectively; (b) correlations between estimated use and well-being variables were consistently stronger than the correlations between reported actual use and well-being variables; and (c) the degree of inaccuracy in estimated use was associated with levels of participant well-being and amount of use. These findings suggest that retrospective estimates of digital technology use may be systematically biased by factors that are fundamental to the associations under investigation. We propose that retrospective estimates of digital technology use may be capturing the construct of perceived use rather than actual use, and discuss how the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of perceived use may be distinct from those of actual use. Implications of these findings are discussed in view of the ongoing debate surrounding the effects of digital technology use on well-being.

The influence of digital media on personal and social well-being is a question of immense public and academic interest. Scholars in this domain often use retrospective self-report measures of the quantity or duration of media use as a proxy for more objective measures, but the validity of these self-report measures remains unclear. Recent advancements in log-based data collection techniques have produced a growing collection of studies indexing both self-reported media use and device-logged measurements. Herein, we report a meta-analysis of this body of research. Based on 104 effect sizes, we found that self-reported media use was only moderately correlated with device-logged measurements, and that these self-report measures were rarely an accurate reflection of logged media use. These results demonstrate that self-reported measures of the quantity or duration of media use are not a valid index of the amount of time people actually spend using media. These findings have serious implications for the study of media use and well- being, suggesting that cautiousness is warranted in drawing conclusions regarding media effects from studies relying solely on self-reported measures of media use.

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