Author(s)
Hunt Allcott,
Matthew Gentzkow and Lena Song
Source
NBER Working Paper No. 28936, 2021
Summary
A study of smartphone use shows that consumers’ excessive use of smartphones and social media may result from digital addiction. Self-control tools reduce usage and improve well-being.
Policy Relevance
Users, parents, and policymakers should support digital self-control tools.
Main Points
- Many people spend considerable time every day on social media, and may check their smartphones 50 to 80 times each day.
- One hypothesis is that digital technologies provide substantial consumer benefits.
- Another is that digital addiction plays a role in digital technology consumption.
- Key questions linked to the issue of digital addiction include:
- Should parents limit children’s smartphone and social media time?
- How can game companies, social media platforms, and smartphone developers contribute to consumer welfare?
- What self-control tools should be available?
- Would regulations such as the proposed Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology Act (SMART) be beneficial?
- Self-control problems are said to occur when consumers use more of a product or service today than they would have chosen for themselves in advance.
- The study considered 2000 American adults with Android smartphones.
- Some were paid to reduce smartphone use, the "bonus treatment."
- Others could limit their next day's smartphone use using a feature that could not easily be overridden, the "limit treatment."
- The study found clear evidence of digital addiction.
- Bonus treatment participants reduced use by 39 percent, and continued to use 19 percent less screen time after the treatment ended.
- Limit treatment participants reduced use by 17 percent, with 89 percent of participants setting binding limits.
- All underestimated their self-control problems and their own smartphone usage.
- Both the bonus and limit treatments reduced behaviors typical of smartphone addiction, such as the use of a smartphone to fall asleep, using phones mindlessly, or using phones to procrastinate.
- The bonus treatment group enjoyed improved well-being, including the ability to avoid distraction, and reduced anxiety and depression.
- About one third of social media and smartphone use arises from self-control problems; there is unmet demand for effective digital self-control tools.