The effects of fragmented and sticky smartphone use on distraction and task delay

Abstract

The smartphone has become an integral part of adolescents’ daily life. Despite the countless affordances of smartphones, concerns have been raised about their enormous potential to cause failures in self-regulation, such as distraction and task delay. The current study investigated whether two smartphone usage patterns, fragmented and sticky smartphone use, are associated with distraction and task delay. For three weeks, we logged the smartphone usage of 160 adolescents (733,359 observations) and assessed their distraction and task delay six times a day with experience sampling (12,723 observations). Using Dynamic Structural Equation Modeling, we found that, overall, adolescents felt more distracted when their smartphone use was more fragmented or sticky. Exploratory analyses indicated that 77% of adolescents experienced increased distraction (i.e., β > .05) when their smartphone use was more fragmented, and 55% when it was sticky. Overall, adolescents did not report more task delay as their smartphone use was more fragmented or sticky. Nonetheless, 22% experienced increased task delay when their smartphone use was more fragmented, and 42% when it was sticky. Together, our findings underline the dynamic nature of smartphone use and its differential impact on self-regulation outcomes.