Beyond Screen Time: Demonstrating the Value of App Activity Logs to Understand User Behavior Further

2026-09-21

AI Summary

研究通过分析457万次应用事件，利用应用活动日志而非回忆使用情况来理解用户行为，揭示了不同群体的使用模式和行为差异。

Abstract

Research on smartphone use remains fragmented, with studies differing in measures, methods, and platforms, limiting what we know about everyday behavior. We argue that event-level app activity logs should form the backbone of research on actual rather than recalled smartphone use. We conduct a secondary analysis of 4,571,252 app events from 1,972 participants across three longitudinal cohorts differing in age, country, recruitment, and platform, complemented by a published reference cohort. We reproduce established aggregate and micro-usage measures and examine temporal structure, application composition, transitions, and individual distinctiveness. Aggregate usage varies less than the organization of activity: adolescent use, for example, is structured around school schedules, while other cohorts show weaker within-day patterns. Application and transition patterns reveal behavioral differences obscured by screen time; an intervention reduced daily usage while increasing mean session duration. Activity traces also enabled 15-22% top-1 participant re-identification. We discuss methodological, reproducibility, and privacy implications for HCI.

Problem

• smartphone use
• app activity logs
• user behavior
• fragmented research

Innovation

• app activity logs
• user behavior
• temporal structure
• behavioral differences
• participant re-identification