Editorial: Children’s Voices on Privacy Management and Data Responsibilization

Contemporary children live in datafied societies in which they navigate and use technological innovations that drive on their personal information. Instructing privacy literacy is often presented as a key solution to help children manage their personal data responsibly. While there is agreement on the empowering potential of privacy literacy for children, there are also concerns over the burden that this responsibility places on them and their capacity for resilience. Children are key stakeholders in this debate. Nonetheless, we rarely hear their voices on issues related to their online privacy and data responsibilization. The articles included in this thematic issue account for this limitation by amplifying the voices of children, looking into the practices of parents and exploring the role of the tools being used

Staying informed and bridging 'social distance' : smartphone news use and mobile messaging behaviors of Flemish adults during the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic

he authors explore patterns of smartphone use during the first weeks following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in Belgium, focusing on citizens’ use of smartphones to consume news and to communicate and interact with others. Unique smartphone tracking data from 2,778 Flemish adults reveal that at the height of the outbreak, people used their smartphone on average 45 minutes (28 percent) more than before the outbreak. The number of smartphone pickups remained fairly stable over this period. This means that on average, users did not turn to their smartphones more frequently but used them longer to access news (54 percent increase), social media apps (72 percent increase), messaging apps (64 percent increase), and the voice call feature (44 percent increase). These smartphone use patterns suggest that smartphones are key instruments that help citizens stay informed, in sync, and in touch with society during times of crisis

Measurement invariance of the phubbing scale across 20 countries

Mobile phone addiction is a robust phenomenon observed throughout the world. The social aspect of mobile phone use is crucial; therefore, phubbing is a part of the mobile phone addiction phenomenon. Phubbing is defined as ignoring an interlocutor by glancing at one's mobile phone during a face-to-face conversation. The main aim of this study was to investigate how the Phubbing Scale (containing 10 items) might vary across countries, and between genders. Data were collected in 20 countries: Belarus, Brazil, China, Croatia, Ecuador, India, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, UK, Ukraine and USA. The mean age across the sample (N = 7696, 65.8% women, 34.2% men) was 25.32 years (SD = 9.50). The cross-cultural invariance of the scale was investigated using multigroup confirmatory factor analyses (MGCFA) as well as the invariance analyses. Additionally, data from each country were assessed individually via confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs). We obtained two factors, based on only eight of the items: (a) communication disturbances and (b) phone obsession. The 8 items Phubbing Scale

Digital Wellbeing as a Dynamic Construct

Mobile media support our autonomy by connecting us to persons, content and services independently of time and place constraints. At the same time, they challenge our autonomy: We face new struggles, decisions, and pressure in relation to whether, when and where we connect and disconnect. Digital wellbeing is a new concept that refers to the (lack) of balance that we may experience in relation to mobile connectivity. This article develops a theoretical model of digital wellbeing that accounts for the dynamic and complex nature of our relationship to mobile connectivity, thereby overcoming conceptual and methodological limitations associated with existing approaches. This model considers digital wellbeing an experiential state of optimal balance between connectivity and disconnectivity that is contingent upon a constellation of person-, device- and context-specific factors. I argue that these constellations represent pathways to digital wellbeing that—when repeated—affect wellbeing outcomes, and that the effectiveness of digital wellbeing interventions depends on their disruptive impact on these pathways

Digital well-being in an age of mobile connectivity: An introduction to the Special Issue

Although the ubiquitous connectivity afforded by mobile media brings benefits to people’s work, social, and leisure lives, these benefits are sometimes overshadowed by the burdens of 24/7 connectivity, which challenge the well-being of individuals and society. Digital well-being is an emerging concept that refers to how people experience these benefits and burdens. This Special Issue brings together five articles that push the boundaries of digital well-being research by shedding light on the opportunities and challenges that people experience in relation to mobile connectivity, exploring the role of digital disconnection for digital well-being, and theorizing the conceptual underpinnings of digital well-being. In this editorial, we first give a definitional overview of the digital well-being concept and situate it in the field of mobile media and communication scholarship. Next, we identify two key issues that emerge from the Special Issue, and explain how the individual articles further our understanding of them. These issues are: (a) the strong conceptual link between digital well-being and digital disconnection; and (b) the conceptual difference between digital well-being as a psychological condition and as a socio-cultural artefact. To end, we present a future research agenda on digital well-being by first identifying current knowledge gaps, and next highlighting several themes that we anticipate as crucial in the forthcoming decade of digital well-being research in an age of mobile connectivity

More Than Just Gaze: An Experimental Vignette Study Examining How Phone-Gazing and Newspaper-Gazing and Phubbing-While-Speaking and Phubbing-While-Listening Compare in Their Effect on Affiliation

Gaze direction is a cue that regulates feelings of affiliation in social interactions. Phubbing research suggests that phone-gazing during a copresent interaction hampers the development of affiliation in interactions by signaling that one is not fully attentive. Because the phone represents the "virtual other," phone-gazing may be more detrimental than gazing at another object. This experimental vignette study explores whether phone-gazing during a conversation harms affiliation more than newspaper-gazing. Additionally, it examines whether the harmful impact of phubbing can be mitigated or aggravated by the phone gazer's interlocutor role-namely, that of speaker versus listener. The results reveal that phone-gazing during an interaction harms affiliation more than newspaper-gazing. Also, phone-gazing hampers affiliation more while listening than while speaking. These findings suggest that phone-gazing incurs unique judgments of relational devaluation in the interaction partner. The activation of these judgments, however, is contingent upon interlocutor role

Are Parents Less Responsive to Young Children When They Are on Their Phones?: A Systematic Naturalistic Observation Study

This study examined whether parents are less responsive to their young children (0-5) when they use a phone. We systematically observed 53 parent-child dyads in consultation bureau waiting rooms and playgrounds. Twenty-three parents used their phone at least once during the observation. Across the dyads, we observed parent and child behavior during a total of 1,038 ten-second intervals. Of these intervals, 641 contained a bid for attention from the child. Accounting for the nested nature of the data, we found that the odds of parents responding to their child's bid for attention were five times lower when using a phone than when not using one. Moreover, parents' responses were less timely, weaker, showed less affect, and were less likely to prioritize the child over other activities. While being fully absorbed in one's phone significantly decreased the odds of responding compared to when not using a phone, occasionally glancing at the phone did not, suggesting that parents may have developed a "mode" of phone use for managing dual attention over the phone and the child. In addition, while a higher intensity of phone use does seem to matter, it did not differ from intense engagement in other nonchild directed activities. The incidence of fully absorbed phone use, however, is greater. Finally, the results show that asking for consent for the observation beforehand leads to a decrease in the odds of phone use, suggesting a social desirability bias. Overall, the findings support concerns over the impact of parental phone use on child development