JoMo - the Joy of Missing out: a User Study of Smartphone Usage Habits
Authors
Frunza, Georgiana ; Staniek, Rajmund Dominik ; Lama, Sangey Dorje Leon
Term
4. Term
Publication year
2022
Submitted on
2022-06-10
Abstract
Smartphones are now a constant presence in daily life. Their convenience also makes it easy to slip into overuse. This thesis introduces a specific kind of misuse we call the Open‑Close pattern—the repeated, often reflexive habit of opening the phone and closing it again shortly after. To challenge this pattern, we built a provotype (a provocative prototype) in the form of an Android app called JoMo that deliberately disrupts phone use. We ran a week‑long qualitative study to observe how participants responded to these disruptions of the Open‑Close pattern. The results show that phone misuse is highly contextual, and that digital wellbeing cannot be reduced to simple metrics like screen time or notification counts. Disrupting people’s routines can help them pause and put the phone down, but this works only in certain situations.
Smartphones er blevet en fast del af hverdagen. Deres bekvemmelighed gør det også let at bruge dem mere, end man havde tænkt. Denne afhandling introducerer en særlig form for misbrug, som vi kalder Open‑Close‑mønsteret—den gentagne, ofte refleksagtige vane med at åbne telefonen og lukke den igen kort efter. For at udfordre dette mønster udviklede vi en provotype (en provokerende prototype) i form af en Android‑app kaldet JoMo, der bevidst skaber forstyrrelser i brugen. Vi gennemførte en ugelang kvalitativ undersøgelse for at se, hvordan deltagere reagerede på disse forstyrrelser af Open‑Close‑mønsteret. Resultaterne viser, at telefonmisbrug er stærkt kontekstafhængigt, og at digitalt velbefindende ikke kan reduceres til simple mål som skærmtid og antal notifikationer. At provokere folk gennem forstyrrelser kan få dem til at holde pause fra telefonen, men det virker kun i bestemte situationer.
[This apstract has been rewritten with the help of AI based on the project's original abstract]
Keywords