Anxiety, Depression, Obesity, Sleep
Conditions
Keywords
Smartphone, Screen time
Brief summary
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.
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.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALPhone use
Objective and subjective reports of smartphone use (e.g., number of hours, number of pick-ups, how phones are used)
Sponsors
Yale-NUS College
Study design
Observational model
COHORT
Time perspective
CROSS_SECTIONAL
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
13 Years to 18 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
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
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Body mass index | 1 minute (single measurement) | Participants' body mass index |
| Sleep duration | 2 minute (single measurement) | Assessment of participants' sleep time & wake time |
| Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS 21) | 11 minutes (single measurement) | A 21-item, 4-point scale measuring participant emotional states. This is the short form of the longer 42-item DASS. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) | 10 minutes (single measurement) | A questionnaire looking at a student's emotional and behavioural aspects in relation to coping with school. |
| Pediatric Daytime Sleepiness Scale (PDSS) | 5 minutes (single measurement) | A 8-item, 5-point self-report scale to measure sleepiness during the day. |
| Digit Span Task | 10 minutes (single measurement) | A digit span task carried out using a computer program |
| Psychomotor Vigilance Task | 10 minutes (single measurement) | PVT carried out using a computer program |
Other
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| General Questionnaire on Media Consumption | 5 minutes (single measurement) | A short questionnaire on the usage patterns of various media devices. |
| Subjective Report of Phone Usage | 10 minutes (single measurement) | A 5-item questionnaire that collects data on self-reported phone use patterns. |
Countries
Singapore
Contacts
Primary ContactJean Liu, PhD
Outcome results
None listed