It has been more than a decade since a concern about the addictive use of the Internet and mobile phones was first expressed, and its possible inclusion into the lists of mental disorders has recently become a popular topic of scientific discussion. Thus, it seems to be a fitting moment to investigate the prevalence of this issue over time. The aim of the present study was to analyze the prevalence of the perception of problematic Internet and smartphone use in young people over the period 2006–2017. To this end, a questionnaire on Internet use habits and two questionnaires on the negative consequences of Internet and smartphone use were administered to a sample of 792 university students. The scores were then compared with the results of former studies that had used these questionnaires. The perception of problematic Internet and mobile phone use has increased over the last decade, social networks are considered responsible for this increase, and females are perceived to be more affected than males. The current study shows how strong smartphone and Internet addiction and social media overlap. Participants from 2017 report higher negative consequences of both Internet and mobile phone use than those from 2006, but long-term observations show a decrease in problematic use after a sharp increase in 2013. We conclude that the diagnosis of technological addictions is influenced by both time and social and culture changes.

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Problematic Use of the Internet and Smartphones in University Students: 2006–2017

We present a qualitative study of mobile communication via WeChat in Southern China, focusing on the rapid proliferation of emoji and stickers and the lessening dependence on text. We use interview and observation data from 30 participants to investigate how rural, small town, and urban Chinese adults creatively and innovatively balance the use of emoji, stickers, and text in their mobile communication practices. We also discuss design implications of our research for the field of HCI, offering ways of leveraging the non-textual communication practices that we uncover, in scenarios where purely text-based communication may not suffice.

Goodbye Text, Hello Emoji: Mobile Communication on WeChat in China

We present the results of a qualitative study of the sharing and consumption of entertainment media on low-cost mobile phones in urban India, a practice which has evolved into a vibrant, informal socio-technical ecosystem. This wide-ranging phenomenon includes end users, mobile phone shops, and content distributors, and exhibits remarkable ingenuity. Even more impressive is the number of obstacles which have been surmounted in its establishment, from the technical (interface complexity, limited Internet access, viruses), to the broader socioeconomic (cost, language, legality, institutional rules, lack of privacy), all seemingly due to a strong desire to be entertained. Our findings carry two implications for projects in HCI seeking to employ technology in service of social and economic development. First, although great attention is paid to the details of UI in many such projects, we find that sufficient user motivation towards a goal turns UI barriers into mere speed bumps. Second, we suggest that needs assessments carry an inherent bias towards what outsiders consider needs, and that identified "needs" may not be as strongly felt as perceived.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/p753-smyth-mediasharing.pdf

Where there's a will there's a way: mobile media sharing in urban india

In recent years, the smartwatch has returned as a form factor for mobile computing with some success. Yet it is not clear how smartwatches are used and integrated into everyday life differently from mobile phones. For this paper, we used wearable cameras to record twelve participants' daily use of smartwatches, collecting and analysing incidents where watches were used from over 34 days of user recording. This allows us to analyse in detail 1009 watch uses. Using the watch as a timepiece was the most common use, making up 50% of interactions, but only 14% of total watch usage time. The videos also let us examine why and how smartwatches are used for activity tracking, notifications, and in combination with smartphones. In discussion, we return to a key question in the study of mobile devices: how are smartwatches integrated into everyday life, in both the actions that we take and the social interactions we are part of?

Smartwatch in vivo

/pdf/convenience-or-nuisance-the-whatsapp-dilemma-3o7r98p73d.pdf

Convenience or Nuisance?: The ‘WhatsApp’ Dilemma

In this paper, we present a study of WhatsApp, an instant messaging smartphone application. Through our interviews with participants, we develop anthopologist Tim Ingold's notion of dwelling, and discuss how use of WhatsApp is constitutive of a felt-life of being together with those close by. We focus on the relationship "doings" in WhatsApp and how this togetherness and intimacy are enacted through small, continuous traces of narrative, of tellings and tidbits, noticings and thoughts, shared images and lingering pauses; this is constitutive of dwelling. Further, we discuss how an intimate knowing of others in these relationships, through past encounters and knowledge of coming together in the future, pertain to the particular forms of relationship engagements manifest through the possibilities presented in WhatsApp. We suggest that this form of sociality is likely to be manifest in other smartphone IM-like applications.

/pdf/everyday-dwelling-with-whatsapp-1o1g161cq0.pdf

Everyday dwelling with WhatsApp

In this paper, we report, first of all, the discovery of a particular kind of emerging social practice involving the exchange of multimedia content on mobiles that we label 'trafficking'. Second, the iteration of a design solution to extend these practices to include the trafficking of broadcast TV content 'segments'. Third, the implications this had for basic assumptions in the interaction design afforded by the two primary OS's in the mobile handset domain. And, fourth, the legal and business inhibitors-enablers that affected not only this research but which are likely to affect all attempts to stretch the capacity of mobile devices and mobile interaction design to afford new ways of 'trafficking' multimedia content.

/pdf/trafficking-design-for-the-viral-exchange-of-tv-content-on-5a3ivbg34w.pdf

Simon Rubens

Papers

Everyday dwelling with WhatsApp

Trafficking: design for the viral exchange of TV content on mobile phones