Project 1: App-specific social media usage and adolescents well-being
- Collaborator: HappyB project, with Dr. Laura Marciano
- Part 1: Appnome and user-donated screenshots
- Abstract: Objective data on social media use is now urgently needed for understanding its impact on adolescent well-being. Traditional objective social media data collec-tion methods, such as data donation and passive sensing, face challenges includ-ing intrusiveness, privacy concerns, and limitations in adolescent—a critical demographic in this research area. In our study, we introduced a novel, less in-trusive method using user-donated screenshots within an ecological momentary assessment (EMA) framework. We recruited 374 adolescents from Switzerland, who were instructed to capture and share three daily screenshots detailing their total and app-specific usage across screentime, activations, and notifications. From this, we collected 6,819 screenshots, with 25% of participants failing to submit any screenshots, 14% submitted incorrect or incomplete ones, while 64% provided complete data for more than five days. To process this data, we developed an image-to-text pipeline using Tesseract OCR that achieved a 96% average accuracy rate. This user-donated screenshot method proved to be less burdensome than traditional data donation, capable of capturing detailed app-specific usage across smartphone operating systems, and applicable among ado-lescents. Nonetheless, success of the user-donated screenshot approach hinges on user compliance. We analyze attrition sources and suggest six strategies to enhance future research, such as incentivizing participation, implementing pre-upload image checks, and improving participant onboarding and education.
- Publication
- Part 2: App-specific usage and adolescent well-being
- Abstract: The debate on how social media use (SMU) influences adolescent well-being is mostly based on self-reports of SMU. By collecting data from 374 Swiss adolescents (Meanage= 15.71; SDage=.82) over 2 weeks, we created “Appnomes” from user-donated screenshots and associated SMU with daily hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Longer TikTok time predicted lower eudaimonic well-being (β =-.08) daily but higher positive emotions (β =.06) on the following day; longer use of WhatsApp predicted negative emotions (β =.06) while screen unlocks higher feelings of connection (β =.08). Instagram notification was positively related to levels of feeling focused (β=.06) the next day. YouTube screen unlocks predicted more feeling of meaning (β=.07) the next day. Snapchat use led to less relaxed, less competent, and less positive emotions (with -.07 < β < -.06). Results pointed towards minimal or no effects, challenging the moral panic on the detrimental impact of SMU on teen well-being.
- Poster
