Screen Time and Productivity: An Extension of Goal-setting Theory to Explain Optimum Smartphone Use

Abstract

Over the past several years, much research has examined the negative consequences that can arise from smartphone use. To help reduce these consequences, companies have developed smartphone applications and features to enable self-monitoring behaviors. However, the mechanisms that have caused smartphone-enabled self-monitoring behaviors to emerge and the positive outcomes that might result from such behaviors have received limited scholarly attention. In this study, we ameliorate this gap by proposing a framework that highlights key antecedents and outcomes of screen- time self-monitoring success based on a smartphone-based self-monitoring intervention. Informed by a short-term longitudinal study, our results show how smartphone-based self-monitoring can enhance awareness of smartphone use and, consequently, lead to positive outcomes for users. Our findings reveal that how users perceive smartphone self- monitoring affordances, their outcome expectations, and their smartphone self-monitoring efficacy positively relate to the extent they engage in smartphone-based self-monitoring behavior. In turn, self-monitoring enhances user productivity and leads to an overall sense of contentment with achievement. Nevertheless, our findings suggest that self-monitoring fatigue negatively moderates these relationships. This study offers novel theoretical and practical insights to encourage users to use smartphones in a more regulated manner. More generally, this study contributes to the literature on self-monitoring and self-regulation in digitally enabled environments