How Accurately Do Children Indicate Their Smartphone Social Media Use?

Abstract

Empirical research revealed that subjective time estimates of social media use show rather low accuracy as compared to objective log measures of use. The present work examined a different subjective measure, that is, intensity of use indicated on a 5-point scale and tested its congruence with an objective measure. A daily diary study with 200 children (103 female; Mage = 11.71, SDage = 1.02) was conducted, with children reporting their daily subjective and objective smartphone use of Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. On the between-person and within-person level, subjective and objective use of the three social media platforms were positively associated with each other, with explained variance (based on pseudo- R2) ranging from 77% to 95% on between-person levels and from 36% to 58% on within-person levels. Furthermore, we identified person-level variables and daily characteristics of social media use that were linked to higher or lower congruence of subjective and objective measures.