Smartphone Use in Germany in 2023: A Mixed-Method Investigation

Abstract

Our understanding of typical smartphone behavior has only recently begun to advance due to the accessibility of increasingly valid data sources. Beyond analysing the frequency, duration, and content of smartphone activities, there is substantial value in understanding when people engage in particular forms of mobile media use, and data collection methods that go beyond simple retrospective self-reports provide the means to do so. This paper contributes to our understanding of contemporary smartphone usage patterns and their temporal dynamics by employing a mixed-method dataset obtained through Android logging, iOS data donation, and mobile experience sampling methods. This dataset captures both the quantity and quality of smartphone use among a large, quota-targeted sample of German adults (n = 2032). The findings provide a comprehensive view of smartphone use, examining both overall trends and daily rhythms. They reveal that smartphone usage is typified by frequent, short interactions, with younger users displaying more fragmented patterns compared to older counterparts, alongside variations in the gratifications derived across age groups. These findings lay the groundwork for further theorization about the causes, nature, and consequences of the observed usage patterns, while also offering essential contextual and methodological insights for researchers employing intensive longitudinal approaches to evaluate smartphone usage.