Embracing Shifting Trends and Reviving Smartphone Sensing

Probably the most popular research platform originally never intended to become one, the smartphone has been instrumental in ushering us into the new era of studying human behavior. Even so, however, our analysis of research papers published in the last decade shows that the smartphone is steadily losing its prominence in mobile sensing research. The loss of a platform that is carried by six billion users at almost all times could stifle research in areas varying from human–computer interaction, over healthcare, to demography. Therefore, in this article, I investigate the potential reasons behind smartphone sensing falling out of research fashion and proposes solutions for some key issues identified.