Manara - Qatar Research Repository
Browse

Perceptions and Misperceptions of Smartphone Use: Applying the Social Norms Approach

Download (202.33 kB)
journal contribution
submitted on 2024-07-11, 12:57 and posted on 2024-07-14, 05:34 authored by John McAlaney, Mohamed Basel Almourad, Georgina Powell, Raian Ali

The social norms approach is an established technique to bring about behaviour change through challenging misperceptions of peer behaviour. This approach is limited by a reliance on self-report and a lack of interactivity with the target population. At the same time, excessive use of digital devices, known as digital addiction, has been recognized as an emergent issue. There is potential to apply the social norms approach to digital addiction and, in doing so, address some of the limitations of the social norms field. In this study, we trialled a social norms intervention with a sample of smartphone users (n = 94) recruited from the users of a commercial app designed to empower individuals to reduce their device usage. Our results indicate that most of the sample overestimated peer use of smartphone apps, demonstrating the existence of misperceptions relating to smartphone use. Such misperceptions are the basis for the social norms approach. We also document the discrepancy between self-report and smartphone usage data as recorded through data collected directly from the device. The potential for the application of the social norms approach and directions for future research are discussed.

Other Information

Published in: Information
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
See article on publisher's website: https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/info11110513

Funding

Zayed University (R18053).

History

Language

  • English

Publisher

MDPI

Publication Year

  • 2020

License statement

This Item is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Institution affiliated with

  • Hamad Bin Khalifa University
  • College of Science and Engineering - HBKU

Geographic coverage

Qatar, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom