With digital communication increasingly shifting to mobile devices, communication research needs to explore ways to retrieve, process, and analyze digital trace data on people’s most personal devices. This study presents a new methodological approach, mobile data donations, in which smartphone usage data is collected unobtrusively with the help of mobile log data. The iOS Screen Time function is used as a test case for gathering log data with the help of screenshots. The study investigates the feasibility of the method, sample biases, and accuracy of smartphone usage self-reports on a general population sample of Dutch citizens ( n=404). Importantly, it explores how mobile data donations can be used as add-ons or substitutes for conventional media exposure measures. Results indicate that (a) users’ privacy concerns and technical skills are crucial factors for the willingness to donate mobile log data and (b) there is a strong tendency for underreporting of smartphone usage duration and frequency.

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The authors explore patterns of smartphone use during the first weeks following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in Belgium, focusing on citizens’ use of smartphones to consume news and to communicate and interact with others. Unique smartphone tracking data from 2,778 Flemish adults reveal that at the height of the outbreak, people used their smartphone on average 45 minutes (28 percent) more than before the outbreak. The number of smartphone pickups remained fairly stable over this period. This means that on average, users did not turn to their smartphones more frequently but used them longer to access news (54 percent increase), social media apps (72 percent increase), messaging apps (64 percent increase), and the voice call feature (44 percent increase). These smartphone use patterns suggest that smartphones are key instruments that help citizens stay informed, in sync, and in touch with society during times of crisis.

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In this study, we explore the media exposure of digital native first-time voters and test for its mobilizing potential for their campaign participation. We compare first-time voters' and experienced voters' exposure to political information on social network sites, non-social online media and offline media. Using a unique research design that involves a smartphone-based diary study, we assess voters' (n = 1108) media exposure every other day of the Danish parliamentary election campaign in 2015. We distinguish between different content types that first-time voters receive on social media and test for variation in the mobilizing potential of these content types. Findings show that social media platforms play a superior role in the media diet of digital native voters and can foster campaign participation. First-time voters are more exposed to direct communication from political actors than experienced voters while content from news media on social media plays an equal role in both groups' media diet. Results suggest that a digital media environment potentially socializes young voters into polarized information environments that nevertheless may increase their involvement in an upcoming election.