Expectations and experiences of screen time, social interaction, and solitude

ABSTRACT

The current research examined how people forecast and experience screen time, social interaction, and solitude. When participants could freely use their smartphone, they forecasted (Study 1) and experienced (Study 2) better mood for face-to-face conversation, but worse mood for sitting alone. When participants were instructed to engage in specific screen time activities, they forecasted (Study 3) and experienced (Study 4) the best mood after watching television; followed by conversation, texting, and browsing social media (no difference); then sitting alone. Although participants in Studies 1 and 2 ranked conversation as their most preferred activity, participants in Studies 3 and 4 ranked it below television and texting, even though conversation improved mood compared to baseline (Study 4). These findings suggest that people may use their smartphones because they enable them to escape the unpleasant experience of being alone, or because they do not recognize or prioritize the mood benefits of social interaction.

KEYWORDS:

• mood
• screen time
• smartphone
• social interaction
• solitude
• well-being

Acknowledgments

We thank the research assistants in the Social Life and Motivation Lab at the University of Pittsburgh for their invaluable assistance with data collection. Data, syntax, and materials are available on the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/2kybt/

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data and materials described in this article are openly available online at https://osf.io/2kybt/

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/pqsd2

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2023.2231617

Notes

1. The reported statistics are from before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, as are the data from the present research. However, it is important to note that early reports suggest that people are spending a greater amount of time on technology during the COVID-19 pandemic (Koeze & Popper, 2020).

2. The exact instructions for the activities in Studies 1–4 are available online (https://osf.io/2kybt/) and in the supplemental materials.

3. Although not a focus of this paper, participants also reported their forecasted and experienced loneliness in Studies 1 and 2. These data were analyzed and are available online (https://osf.io/2kybt/) and in the supplemental materials.

4. If Mauchly’s Test of Sphericity was significant, then the assumption of sphericity was violated and a Greenhouse-Geisser correction was used. However, because Greenhouse-Geisser is a conservative correction, when its epsilon was greater than 0.75 the more liberal Huynd-Feldt correction was used (see Table S1).

5. Before engaging in the activities, participants completed additional measures of personality, loneliness, narcissism, and social phobia that have not been analyzed. These survey measures are available online (https://osf.io/2kybt/).

6. Because internal reliability of the negative affect scale was low, further examination of the scale revealed that removing the “boredom” item would increase reliability to .57–.66. Thus, we ran all reported hypothesis tests with the “boredom” item removed and found that this item did not change the pattern or statistical significance of the results. Thus, we retained “boredom” in the negative affect composite in all reported statistics. Results with the “boredom” item removed can be found in the supplemental materials (Tables S2 and S4).

Additional information

Funding

The authors report there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Christina M. Leckfor

Christina M. Leckfor is a social psychology Ph.D. student at the University of Georgia. Her research examines how communication technologies (e.g., smartphones) impact relationship processes, and how social interactions and supportive relationships influence well-being. Ultimately, she aims to understand how people can maximize the benefits of social relationships to lead happier and healthier lives.

Natasha R. Wood

Natasha R. Wood is an experimental psychology Ph.D. student at the University of Mississippi. She researches the motivations that drive people to radicalize to violent extremism, specifically focusing on the influence of threatened basic psychological needs, such as after experiencing social isolation or ostracism.

Sarah M. Kwiatek

Sarah M. Kwiatek is a joint Lab Manager and Research Technician under the direction of Dr. Rick Hoyle at the Center for the Study of Adolescent Risk and Resilience (C-StARR) at Duke University. Sarah’s research examines socio-ecological factors that may influence adolescent development, with a focus on both substance use and mental health outcomes. She also has an interest in investigating the role that digital technology plays in development. Her research lies at the intersection of clinical, developmental, and social psychology.

Edward Orehek

Edward Orehek, Ph.D. is a social psychologist and behavioral scientist. He has authored more than 60 scholarly publications in outlets such as Psychological Review, Annual Review of Psychology, Perspectives on Psychological Science, and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. His research examines individual goal pursuit and social relationships, including how people help one another achieve their goals.