The Impact of Phone Use on Everyday Outcomes

Participants will download a phone-tracking app for a week to track phone usage, providing objective data on usage patterns. Quantitative tasks and questionnaires will also be carried out before and after the tracking period.

Study Overview

• Status: Unknown
• Conditions: Depression; Obesity; Sleep; Anxiety
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Phone use

Detailed Description

A notable shortcoming of existing mobile phone research is that 'phone use' has almost exclusively been measured through subjective reports - by simply asking respondents how much time they spend on their mobile phones each day. This operational definition, however, is a major shortcoming as phone use is difficult to track - and is thus likely to be highly inaccurate.

To address this gap, the investigators describe in this proposal a first step to characterize phone usage in an objective manner - by asking adolescents to download a phone-tracking app for a week. This circumvents measurement errors inherent to self-reports, and allows us to probe: (1) how accurate adolescents' estimates are of their own phone usage, and (2) whether objective phone usage predicts any cognitive, socio-emotional, or physical outcomes. The completion of this study will represent an important step forward in the development of empirically-driven guidelines on phone use amongst adolescents.

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Anticipated): 1000

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Singapore
  • Singapore, Singapore, 138527
    • Recruiting
    • Yale-NUS College
    • Contact: Jean Liu, PhD; Email: jeanliu@yale-nus.edu.sg

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 13 years to 18 years (Child, Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Adolescents aged 13-18 years old recruited from Singapore schools.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Owns a smartphone

Exclusion Criteria:

• Parents not willing to give consent
• History of medical or psychiatric disorder
• History of motion sickness, dizziness or epilepsy

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Number of groups / cohorts

1

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort	Intervention / Treatment
High school student; 13-18 year old students enrolled in schools within Singapore.	Behavioral: Phone use; Objective and subjective reports of smartphone use (e.g., number of hours, number of pick-ups, how phones are used)

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS 21)	A 21-item, 4-point scale measuring participant emotional states. This is the short form of the longer 42-item DASS.	11 minutes (single measurement)
Body mass index	Participants' body mass index	1 minute (single measurement)
Sleep duration	Assessment of participants' sleep time & wake time	2 minute (single measurement)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Digit Span Task	A digit span task carried out using a computer program	10 minutes (single measurement)
Psychomotor Vigilance Task	PVT carried out using a computer program	10 minutes (single measurement)
Pediatric Daytime Sleepiness Scale (PDSS)	A 8-item, 5-point self-report scale to measure sleepiness during the day.	5 minutes (single measurement)
Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)	A questionnaire looking at a student's emotional and behavioural aspects in relation to coping with school.	10 minutes (single measurement)

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
General Questionnaire on Media Consumption	A short questionnaire on the usage patterns of various media devices.	5 minutes (single measurement)
Subjective Report of Phone Usage	A 5-item questionnaire that collects data on self-reported phone use patterns.	10 minutes (single measurement)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Yale-NUS College
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Jean Liu, PhD, Yale-NUS College

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): March 25, 2019
• Primary Completion (Anticipated): May 31, 2021
• Study Completion (Anticipated): June 10, 2021

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: March 8, 2020
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 10, 2020
• First Posted (Actual): March 11, 2020

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 11, 2020
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 10, 2020
• Last Verified: March 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Smartphone; Screen time
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavioral Symptoms; Depression
• Other Study ID Numbers: S-18-213

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO
• IPD Plan Description: Stipulations by the institutional review board do not allow individualized data to be shared.

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No