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A Novel Approach to Evaluating Mobile Smartphone Screen Time for iPhones: Feasibility and Preliminary Findings

BACKGROUND: Increasingly high levels of smartphone ownership and use pose the potential risk for addictive behaviors and negative health outcomes, particularly among younger populations. Previous methodologies to understand mobile screen time have relied on self-report surveys or ecological momentar...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Gower, Aubrey D, Moreno, Megan A
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6277825/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30455163
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/11012
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author Gower, Aubrey D
Moreno, Megan A
author_facet Gower, Aubrey D
Moreno, Megan A
author_sort Gower, Aubrey D
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Increasingly high levels of smartphone ownership and use pose the potential risk for addictive behaviors and negative health outcomes, particularly among younger populations. Previous methodologies to understand mobile screen time have relied on self-report surveys or ecological momentary assessments (EMAs). Self-report is subject to bias and unreliability, while EMA can be burdensome to participants. Thus, a new methodology is needed to advance the understanding of mobile screen time. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to test the feasibility of a novel methodology to record and evaluate mobile smartphone screen time and use: battery use screenshot (BUS). METHODS: The BUS approach, defined for this study as uploading a mobile phone screenshot of a specific page within a smartphone, was utilized within a Web-based cross-sectional survey of adolescents aged 12-15 years through the survey platform Qualtrics. Participants were asked to provide a screenshot of their battery use page, a feature within an iPhone, to upload within the Web-based survey. Feasibility was assessed by smartphone ownership and response rate to the BUS upload request. Data availability was evaluated as apps per BUS, completeness of data within the screenshot, and five most used apps based on battery use percentage. RESULTS: Among those surveyed, 26.73% (309/1156) indicated ownership of a smartphone. A total of 105 screenshots were evaluated. For data availability, screenshots contained an average of 10.2 (SD 2.0) apps per screenshot and over half (58/105, 55.2%) had complete data available. The most common apps or functions included Safari and Home and Lock Screen. CONCLUSIONS: Study findings describe the BUS as a novel approach for real-time data collection focused on iPhone screen time and use among young adolescents. Although feasibility showed some challenges in the upload capacity of young teens, data availability was generally strong across this large dataset. These data from screenshots have the potential to provide key insights into precise mobile smartphone screen use and time spent per mobile app. Future studies could explore the use of the BUS methodology on other mobile smartphones such as Android phones to correlate mobile smartphone screen time with health outcomes.
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spelling pubmed-62778252018-12-28 A Novel Approach to Evaluating Mobile Smartphone Screen Time for iPhones: Feasibility and Preliminary Findings Gower, Aubrey D Moreno, Megan A JMIR Mhealth Uhealth Original Paper BACKGROUND: Increasingly high levels of smartphone ownership and use pose the potential risk for addictive behaviors and negative health outcomes, particularly among younger populations. Previous methodologies to understand mobile screen time have relied on self-report surveys or ecological momentary assessments (EMAs). Self-report is subject to bias and unreliability, while EMA can be burdensome to participants. Thus, a new methodology is needed to advance the understanding of mobile screen time. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to test the feasibility of a novel methodology to record and evaluate mobile smartphone screen time and use: battery use screenshot (BUS). METHODS: The BUS approach, defined for this study as uploading a mobile phone screenshot of a specific page within a smartphone, was utilized within a Web-based cross-sectional survey of adolescents aged 12-15 years through the survey platform Qualtrics. Participants were asked to provide a screenshot of their battery use page, a feature within an iPhone, to upload within the Web-based survey. Feasibility was assessed by smartphone ownership and response rate to the BUS upload request. Data availability was evaluated as apps per BUS, completeness of data within the screenshot, and five most used apps based on battery use percentage. RESULTS: Among those surveyed, 26.73% (309/1156) indicated ownership of a smartphone. A total of 105 screenshots were evaluated. For data availability, screenshots contained an average of 10.2 (SD 2.0) apps per screenshot and over half (58/105, 55.2%) had complete data available. The most common apps or functions included Safari and Home and Lock Screen. CONCLUSIONS: Study findings describe the BUS as a novel approach for real-time data collection focused on iPhone screen time and use among young adolescents. Although feasibility showed some challenges in the upload capacity of young teens, data availability was generally strong across this large dataset. These data from screenshots have the potential to provide key insights into precise mobile smartphone screen use and time spent per mobile app. Future studies could explore the use of the BUS methodology on other mobile smartphones such as Android phones to correlate mobile smartphone screen time with health outcomes. JMIR Publications 2018-11-19 /pmc/articles/PMC6277825/ /pubmed/30455163 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/11012 Text en ©Aubrey D Gower, Megan A Moreno. Originally published in JMIR Mhealth and Uhealth (http://mhealth.jmir.org), 19.11.2018. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR mhealth and uhealth, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://mhealth.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Gower, Aubrey D
Moreno, Megan A
A Novel Approach to Evaluating Mobile Smartphone Screen Time for iPhones: Feasibility and Preliminary Findings
title A Novel Approach to Evaluating Mobile Smartphone Screen Time for iPhones: Feasibility and Preliminary Findings
title_full A Novel Approach to Evaluating Mobile Smartphone Screen Time for iPhones: Feasibility and Preliminary Findings
title_fullStr A Novel Approach to Evaluating Mobile Smartphone Screen Time for iPhones: Feasibility and Preliminary Findings
title_full_unstemmed A Novel Approach to Evaluating Mobile Smartphone Screen Time for iPhones: Feasibility and Preliminary Findings
title_short A Novel Approach to Evaluating Mobile Smartphone Screen Time for iPhones: Feasibility and Preliminary Findings
title_sort novel approach to evaluating mobile smartphone screen time for iphones: feasibility and preliminary findings
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6277825/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30455163
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/11012
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