Harmony with technology

Abstract

Prior studies have addressed that lack of self-regulation of smartphone use often causes distractions/disruption in daily activities such as study, work, social interaction, and sleep. In this thesis, I propose a new approach for improving self-regulation of smartphone use that leverages social support

that is, a group of friends limit their smartphone use together and share their limiting information with one another. Upon this approach, I developed three group-based smartphone intervention apps for three important user groups related to social support and smartphone usage problems: (1) NUGU for peers, (2) FamiLync for parents and child, and (3) Lock n' LoL for group members in an activity. These apps basically consist of three components to support sub-processes of self-regulation in the view of social cognitive theory, i.e., self-awareness for self-monitoring, social awareness for self-judgment, and limiting assistance for self-reaction. However, their specific designs were determined by preliminary studies and iterative prototyping to fit each particular group scenario better. I conducted in-the-wild user studies to evaluate the effectiveness of my intervention apps. My user study results show that these three apps improved users' self-regulation of smartphone use and also newly created positive user experiences such as social learning, peer pressure, facilitated communications, and feelings of unity. Finally, my study results provide practical implications for designing group-based smartphone intervention service such as synchronousness/translucence of social awareness, and relationships factors.