How Accurately Do Children Indicate Their Smartphone Social Media Use?

Abstract

Abstract: Empirical research revealed that subjective time estimates of social media use show rather low accuracy as compared to objective log measures of use. The present work examined a different subjective measure, that is, intensity of use indicated on a 5-point scale and tested its congruence with an objective measure. A daily diary study with 200 children (103 female; Mage = 11.71, SDage = 1.02) was conducted, with children reporting their daily subjective and objective smartphone use of Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. On the between-person and within-person level, subjective and objective use of the three social media platforms were positively associated with each other, with explained variance (based on pseudo- R2) ranging from 77% to 95% on between-person levels and from 36% to 58% on within-person levels. Furthermore, we identified person-level variables and daily characteristics of social media use that were linked to higher or lower congruence of subjective and objective measures.