From use perception to use behavior: Digitally traced smartphone use purposes and psychological well-being in daily life

Research on smartphone use and psychological well-being has yielded ambivalent and generally small effects. Three methodological limitations contribute to this inconsistency: studies typically capture smartphone use through aggregate measures such as screen time, rely on self-reported estimates that are systematically biased, and focus predominantly on between-person differences while neglecting within-person dynamics. The present study addresses these limitations by examining the between- and within-person associations between digitally traced smartphone use purposes and psychological well-being. Using device logged app use data from a 10-day ecological momentary assessment study of romantic couples (N = 342 individuals), we examined five smartphone use purposes – active social use, passive social use, news consumption, entertainment, and practical use – in relation to positive affect, negative affect, and perceived stress. Analyses were replicated across two subsets to circumvent the dyadic structure of the data, and as an internal robustness check. Across both subsets, associations between digitally traced use purposes and well-being were overall modest and largely inconsistent. The only robust finding across subsets was a within-person association suggesting that days of higher than typical active social use were associated with lower positive affect. Notably, passive social use, which is among the strongest negative predictors of well-being in self-report studies, showed no reliable association under device logged measurement. Overall, these findings suggest that the psychological consequences of actual smartphone use behavior are more limited and more context-dependent than self-report studies imply, underscoring the importance of measurement methods in research on digital technology and well-being.