Publication details
Does Smartphone Application Use Impact Adolescents’ Affect? Or Vice Versa? An Experience Sampling Study
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2026 |
| Type | Peer-reviewed scientific article |
| Magazine / Source | MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| web | |
| Doi | https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2026.2729979 |
| Keywords | smartphone use; experience sampling; adolescents; social media; entertainment; gaming; positive and negative affect |
| Attached files | |
| Description | Adolescents spend substantial time on smartphones, often engaging with social and entertainment applications. While mood management theories suggest that media use can be linked to the regulation of affect, empirical findings remain mixed, and often rely on self-reports and unidirectional assumptions. This study advances theory and methodology by examining the short-term associations between social networking and entertainment application use and affective states, and vice versa, using experience sampling and trace data. A sample of 197 Czech adolescents participated in four two-week bursts of data collection, during which smartphone use was logged and affective states were assessed multiple times daily. While we found that application use was related to affective states at the between-person level, these findings did not consistently translate to individual-level dynamics. At the within-person level, increased social application use was followed by slightly higher negative and lower positive affect, while an increase in positive affect predicted a small decrease in entertainment application use. Our results provide partial support for some pathways in mood management theory among certain adolescents. Our results imply that public concerns about the severe harms of smartphone use to short-term psychological well-being may be overstated. |
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