Currently about 2.71 billion humans use a smartphone worldwide. Although smartphone technology has brought many advances, a growing number of scientists discuss potential detrimental effects due to excessive smartphone use. Of importance, the likely culprit to understand over-usage is not the smartphone itself, but the excessive use of applications installed on smartphones. As the current business model of many app-developers foresees an exchange of personal data for allowance to use an app, it is not surprising that many design elements can be found in social media apps and Freemium games prolonging app usage. It is the aim of the present work to analyze several prominent smartphone apps to carve out such elements. As a result of the analysis, a total of six different mechanisms are highlighted to illustrate the prevailing business model in smartphone app development. First, these app-elements are described and second linked to classic psychological/economic theories such as the mere-exposure effect, endowment effect, and Zeigarnik effect, but also to psychological mechanisms triggering social comparison. It is concluded that many of the here presented app-elements on smartphones are able to prolong usage time, but it is very hard to understand such an effect on the level of a single element. A systematic analysis would require insights into app data usually only being available for the app-designers, but not for independent scientists. Nevertheless, the present work supports the notion that it is time to critically reflect on the prevailing business model of ‘user data in exchange for app-use allowance’. Instead of using a service in exchange for data, it ultimately might be better to ban or regulate certain design elements in apps to come up with less addictive products. Instead, users could pay a reasonable fee for an app service.

Mounting evidence shows that smartphone usage heavily disrupts our work life and social activities. Moreover, it is possible that overuse could resemble addictive tendencies. A key contributing factor to smartphone overuse seems to be usage of the messaging application WhatsApp. Although WhatsApp is one of the most commonly used communication applications on smartphones, research in this area is scarce. Given the huge societal debate on the impact of smartphone usage on our daily lives, the present study undertook a large-scale investigation in order to provide numbers on smartphone usage generally—and use of WhatsApp in particular, with the aim of providing a basis for a scientific debate. In a large sample of N = 2,418 users, we recorded WhatsApp behaviour over a 4 week period. Our data show that use of WhatsApp accounted for 19.83% (= 32.11 min) of all smartphone behaviour (compare: Facebook only 9.38% = 15.19 min). The mean of general daily smartphone usage was 161.95 min. Females used WhatsApp for significantly longer periods of time than males and younger age was associated with longer duration of WhatsApp use. While the personality trait Extraversion was positively associated with daily WhatsApp use, Conscientiousness showed an inverse correlation with the length of daily WhatsApp use. The numbers on smartphone usage in the present study show that the smartphone dominates our daily life. In particular WhatsApp is a driving force, here. Given the length of daily smartphone and WhatsApp usage, more studies need to be conducted to better understand smartphone usage.

Smartphones are ubiquitous in the digital society. Although this powerful device is useful because it supports and simplifies many tasks in everyday life, a growing number of researchers is concerned that smartphones might have detrimental effects on the human brain and related psychological processes. Evidence indicates that social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook are essential drivers of smartphone usage. Thus, a critical, yet unexplored issue is how excessive use of those platforms is related to Smartphone Use Disorder (SUD). Furthermore, since the roles of life satisfaction and fear of missing out (FoMo) have been demonstrated to be of particular importance for Internet Use and Internet Communication Disorder, those constructs were examined in the context of SUD. In total, n = 2299 participants filled in questionnaires assessing SUD, WhatsApp and Facebook Use Disorder, FoMO, life satisfaction, and reported owning a WhatsApp and Facebook account. The study revealed that SUD was linked to WhatsApp Use Disorder, and to a lesser extent, to Facebook Use Disorder. Associations between SUD and WhatsApp Use Disorder were most strongly pronounced in females. Additionally, FoMo predicted SUD, WhatsApp, Facebook Use Disorder, and (fully) mediated the relationship between life satisfaction and those variables. The findings of the present study suggest that WhatsApp use plays an important role to understand SUD. Regarding the mediating role of FoMO, the present work might help disentangle inconsistent results on the link between life satisfaction and (excessive) social networking sites use.

Recent studies have yielded initial evidence for an association between Internet Use Disorder (IUD), empathy, and life satisfaction. In the present study we sought to replicate these previous findings, and then to extend this research by also examining the relationship between empathy, life satisfaction, and the related phenomenon of Smartphone Use Disorder (SUD). The present study included independent samples from China (N = 612, 162 females) and Germany (N = 304, 207 females), with the same set of questionnaires administered to both samples. IUD was measured with Pawlikowski's s-IAT and SUD was assessed with the short version of Kwon's Smartphone Addiction Scale. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) was used to assess individual differences in empathy. Please note that for the German sample data on the empathy quotient (EQ) are also available. Life satisfaction data were collected using items from the SOEP-Questionnaire (Socio-Economic Panel, Germany). In both of our samples we replicated previous findings showing the association between higher IUD, lower empathy, and lower life satisfaction scores. In addition, individuals with higher SUD showed higher scores on the IRI Personal Distress scale in China and Germany, while further associations between IRI dimensions and SUD were only found in the Chinese sample. Personal Distress is known to be highly correlated with the personality trait of Neuroticism, hence higher stress/negative emotionality in tense social situations is related to SUD. In the present study we confirm earlier findings showing the relationship between empathy, life satisfaction, and IUD, and extend some of these findings to SUD. We also emphasize the importance of cross-cultural studies when investigating IUD/SUD in the context of empathy and life satisfaction.

Psychologists and psychiatrists commonly rely on self-reports or interviews to diagnose or treat behavioral addictions. The present study introduces a novel source of data: recordings of the actual problem behavior under investigation. A total of N = 58 participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire measuring problematic mobile phone behavior featuring several questions on weekly phone usage. After filling in the questionnaire, all participants received an application to be installed on their smartphones, which recorded their phone usage for five weeks. The analyses revealed that weekly phone usage in hours was overestimated; in contrast, numbers of call and text message related variables were underestimated. Importantly, several associations between actual usage and being addicted to mobile phones could be derived exclusively from the recorded behavior, but not from self-report variables. The study demonstrates the potential benefit to include methods of psychoinformatics in the diagnosis and treatment of problematic mobile phone use.