Original article: "Smartphone use in a large US adult population: Temporal associations between objective measures of usage and mental well-being" - https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2427311122

Notes: They used objective measures of smartphone usage, rather than self-reporting. But the study only measured effects over a 4-week period.

> Over a four-week period, participants' smartphone activity—including screen time, app categories and unlock frequency—was passively recorded and paired with daily mood check-ins. The researchers used statistical techniques to investigate potential relationships between smartphone use and subsequent mood and mental health symptoms across time.

A few thoughts:

1. This is a very short-term look at smartphone usage.

2. It relies on self-reported mood check-ins.

3. I think it suffers from an age issue, because adults today are still mostly people who also grew up before social media and smart phones.

It’s an interesting study to conduct. A longer-term study, with other factors included (income, health, addictive personality measurements, etc) would tell us more though.