Smartphone usage behavior

Abstract

The data for this project come from a web survey among smartphone users 18 years and older who live in Germany. Respondents were recruited from the German nonprobability online panel of Dynata.



In January of 2020, members of the online panel were invited through a survey-router system, and 3,350 people started the survey. Only smartphone owners were able to proceed to the main questionnaire, and quotas for gender, age, and frequency of smartphone usage were employed to generate a sample with sufficient diversity. Of the panel members who started the survey, 669 were screened out because of the quotas, because they reported not owning a smartphone, or because they did not live in Germany. Of the 2,681 remaining respondents, 156 did not complete the survey (5.8%), and 2,525 respondents completed the questionnaire.



The questionnaire included items on smartphone use and skills as well as sleep behavior, physical activity, and mobility. The questionnaire was programmed in EFS Survey. Respondents could complete the questionnaire on a PC, tablet or smartphone; 36 percent of the respondents completed the questionnaire on a smartphone. The median time for completing the questionnaire was 6 minutes and 48 seconds.