Abstract
Despite long-standing concerns over self-reported measures of media use, media research has relied heavily on self-reported data. This study not only examined discrepancies between survey and logged smartphone data but assessed whether correlational outcomes using self-reported measures produce greater or smaller effect sizes compared to outcomes using logged measures. College students (n = 294) and MTurk workers (n = 291) provided self-reported and logged data of smartphone use over seven days. The correlations we examined involved four psychosocial contexts, including bridging, bonding, well-being, and problematic use of smartphones. The results showed that the effect sizes of correlations using self-reported data tend to be smaller compared to those using logged data. We believe that this is a hopeful message to the field. This could mean that extant survey results have not erroneously inflated communication findings and that communication researchers still have a lot to reveal with further refined measures.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 346-363 |
Number of pages | 18 |
Journal | Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication |
Volume | 25 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 1 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of International Communication Association. All rights reserved.
Keywords
- Logged Data
- Problematic Use of Smartphones
- Screen Time
- Self-Reports
- Smartphone Use
- Social Capital
- Well-being
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Communication