Understanding the construction of ‘behavior’ in smartphone addiction: A scoping review
•A scoping review of 1305 papers from the smartphone addiction literature was conducted to understand how behavior is measured.•Half of papers (49.89%) do not report smartphone use behaviors.•The proportion of papers reporting behaviour, and actual logged behavior, is decreasing over time.•Logged da...
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| Published in: | Addictive behaviors Vol. 137; p. 107503 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
England
Elsevier Ltd
01-02-2023
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | •A scoping review of 1305 papers from the smartphone addiction literature was conducted to understand how behavior is measured.•Half of papers (49.89%) do not report smartphone use behaviors.•The proportion of papers reporting behaviour, and actual logged behavior, is decreasing over time.•Logged data is easy to measure using participants’ phones, and should be used where possible.
It has been claimed that smartphone usage constitutes a behavioral addiction, characterised by compulsive, excessive use of one’s phone and psychological withdrawal or distress when the phone is absent. However, there is uncertainty about key phenomenological and conceptual details of smartphone addiction. One of the central problems has been understanding the processes that link smartphone usage, and addiction. The question this paper aims to answer is straightforward: based on measures utilised in the literature, what does ‘behavior’ mean in the context of smartphone addiction? A scoping review of the smartphone addiction literature was undertaken. This identified 1305 studies collecting smartphone addiction data. Just under half (49.89%) of all published smartphone addiction papers did not report the collection of any smartphone specific behaviors. Those that did tended to focus on a small cluster of self-reported behaviors capturing volume of overall use: hours spent using a smartphone per day, number of pickups, duration of smartphone ownership, and types of app used. Approximately 10% of papers used logged behavioral data on phones. Although the theoretical literature places increasing focus on context and patterns of use, measurements of behavior tend to focus on broad, volumetric measures. The number of studies reporting behavior has decreased over time, suggesting smartphone addiction is becoming increasingly trait-like. Both major phone operating systems have proprietary apps that collected behavioral data by default, and research in the field should take advantage of these capabilities when measuring smartphone usage. |
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| Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-3 content type line 23 ObjectType-Review-1 |
| ISSN: | 0306-4603 1873-6327 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.addbeh.2022.107503 |