We're bad at saying how long we spend on our phone

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-05-18 01:00

International

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Scientists have found people's reports of their digital media use rarely reflect their actual screen time. They analysed previous studies where researchers not only asked participants how much time they spent on electronics, but also automatically logged it through their devices. They found the gulf between reported and logged time got even wider when researchers were trying to measure problematic media use, raising concerns about the validity of studies relying only on people's reports.