Beyond screentime: a 7-day mobile tracking study among college students to disentangle smartphone screentime and content effects on sleep

Sindy R. Sumter, Susanne E. Baumgartner and Wisnu Wiradhany

Behaviour and Information Technology, 2025, vol. 44, issue 6, 1260-1276

Abstract: Health professionals and scholars alike consider evening smartphone use an important public health challenge. Existing research on the effects of smartphone usage on sleep has three limitations, namely reliance on self-report measures of smartphone use and/or sleep, limited attention to within-person effects, and a focus on general screentime rather than specific app usage. The current study addressed these limitations by conducting a seven-day study assessing smartphone use and sleep with a combination of subjective and objective measures among 75 students. The findings do not support the assumption that evening smartphone interferes with sleep. We did observe between-person relationships between specific indicators of smartphone usage and sleep, e.g. sleep quality was positively related to the use of meditation apps, and negatively related to the use of work-related apps. These findings indicate research should focus on what individuals do on their phones instead of how much time they spend.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2024.2350663

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