Understanding User Contexts and Coping Strategies for Context-aware Phone Distraction Management System Design

Abstract

Smartphones are often distraction for everyday life activities. In this work, we envision designing a context-aware system that helps users better manage smartphone distractions. This system design requires us to have an in-depth understanding of users' contexts of smartphone distractions and their coping strategies. However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the contexts in which users perceive that smartphones are distracting in their everyday lives. Furthermore, prior studies did not systematically examine users' preferred coping strategies for handling interruptions caused by smartphones, possibly supported by context-aware systems that proactively manage smartphone distraction. To bridge this gap, we collect in-situ user contexts and their corresponding levels of perceived smartphone distraction as well as analyze the daily contexts in which users perceive smartphones as distracting. Moreover, we also explore how users want to manage phone distraction by asking them to write simple if-then rules. Our results on user contexts and coping strategies provide important implications for designing and implementing context-aware distraction management systems.