Contextual experience sampling of mobile application micro-usage

Abstract

Research suggests smartphone users face "application overload", but literature lacks an in-depth investigation of how users manage their time on smartphones. In a 3-week study we collected smartphone application usage patterns from 21 participants to study how they manage their time interacting with the device. We identified events we term application micro-usage: brief bursts of interaction with applications. While this practice has been reported before, it has not been investigated in terms of the context in which it occurs (e.g., location, time, trigger and social context). In a 2-week follow-up study with 15 participants, we captured participants' context while micro-using, with a mobile..