JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Assessing human behaviors via smartphone for monitoring pattern of daily behaviors has become a crucial issue in this century. Thus, more accurate and precise methodology is needed for smartphone use research.

Objective:

We aimed to investigate the duration of data collection needed to establish a reliable pattern of use, how long could a smartphone use cycle perpetuate by assessing maximum time intervals between two smartphone periods, and to validate smartphone use and use/non-use reciprocity parameters.

Methods:

Using the Know Addiction database, we selected 33 participants and passively recorded their smartphone usage patterns for at least 8 weeks. We generated four parameters based on smartphone use episodes, including total use frequency, total use duration, proactive use frequency, and proactive use duration. Three additional parameters, Root Mean Square of the Successive Differences (RMSSD), Control Index (CI), and Similarity Index (SI), were calculated to reflect impaired control and compulsive use.

Results:

Our findings included: 1) proactive use duration correlated with subjective smartphone addiction scores; 2) a 2-week period of data collection is required to infer a 2-month period of smartphone use; and 3) smartphone use cycles with a time gap of 4 weeks between them are highly likely independent cycles.

Conclusions:

The current study validated temporal stability for smartphone use patterns recorded by mobile application. The results may provide researchers an opportunity to investigate human behaviors with more structured and precise methods.