Two edges of the screen: Unpacking positive and negative associations between phone use in everyday contexts and subjective well-being

Abstract

A plethora of past studies have highlighted a negative association between phone use and well-being. Recent studies claimed that there is a lack of strong evidence on the deleterious effects of smartphones on our health, and that previous systematic reviews overestimated the negative link between phone use and well-being. In a three-week long in-the-wild study with 352 participants, we captured 15,607 instances of smartphone use in tandem with rich contextual information (activity, location, company) as well as self-reported well-being measures. We conducted an additional study to gather users’ perception of the impact of phone use on their well-being in different daily contexts. Our findings show that context and personal characteristics greatly impact the association between screen time and subjective well-being. This study highlights the complexity of the relationship between phone use and well-being and it deepens our understanding of this problem.