Three Hours a Day: Understanding Current Teen Practices of Smartphone Application Use

Teens are using mobile devices for an increasing number of activities. Smartphones and a variety of mobile apps for communication, entertainment, and productivity have become an integral part of their lives. This mobile phone use has evolved rapidly as technology has changed and thus studies from even 2 or 3 years ago may not reflect new patterns and practices as smartphones have become more sophisticated. In order to understand current teen’s practices around smartphone use, we conducted a two-week, mixed-methods study with 14 diverse teens. Through voicemail diaries, interviews, and real-world usage data from a logging application installed on their smartphones, we developed an understanding of the types of apps used by teens, when they use these apps, and their reasons for using specific apps in particular situations. We found that the teens in our study used their smartphones for an average of almost 3 hours per day and that two-thirds of all app use involved interacting with an average of almost 10 distinct communications applications. From our study data, we highlight key implications for the design of future mobile apps or services, specifically new social and communications-related applications that allow teens to maintain desired levels of privacy and permanence on the content that they share.