Mobile phone use and subjective well-being: Implications for responsible research and innovation

Alexandra Palm
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Alexandra Palm: TIK, University of Oslo

No 20200823, Working Papers on Innovation Studies from Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo

Abstract: How does mobile phone use affect subjective well-being, and what are the implications of this for responsible research and innovation (RRI)? Previous studies generally find negative associations between mobile phone use and users’ well-being. This paper presents novel evidence of this question based on a new survey dataset for a large representative sample of Norwegian adults. The paper highlights three findings. First, the intensity of mobile phone use per se is not significantly associated with subjective well-being. Second, communication features of mobile phones such as private phone calls and text messaging are positively associated with subjective well-being. Third, network and communication applications (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) are negatively associated with the subjective well-being of young adults. The paper discusses implications of these empirical results in terms of RRI, arguing that policy makers and industry actors should consider individual users’ well-being as a central dimension to assess objectives and impacts of innovation processes in digital technologies.

Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2020-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap, nep-ino and nep-pay
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