“How Come You Don’t Call Me?” Smartphone Communication App Usage as an Indicator of Loneliness and Social Well-Being across the Adult Lifespan during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Loneliness and lack of social well-being are associated with adverse health outcomes and have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Smartphone communication data have been suggested to help monitor loneliness, but this requires further evidence. We investigated the informative value of smartphone communication app data for predicting subjective loneliness and social well-being in a sample of 364 participants ranging from 18 to 78 years of age (52.2% female; mean age = 42.54, SD = 13.22) derived from the CORONA HEALTH APP study from July to December 2020 in Germany. The participants experienced relatively high levels of loneliness and low social well-being during the time period characterized by the COVID-19 pandemic. Apart from positive associations with phone call use times, smartphone communication app use was associated with social well-being and loneliness only when considering the age of participants. Younger participants with higher use times tended to report less social well-being and higher loneliness, while the opposite association was found for older adults. Thus, the informative value of smartphone communication use time was rather small and became evident only in consideration of age. The results highlight the need for further investigations and the need to address several limitations in order to draw conclusions at the population level.

For Better or for Worse? A Scoping Review of the Relationship between Internet Use and Mental Health in Older Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Interestingly, there was one study that utilised the passive smartphone communication applications’ data. The number of times that the communication applications were used in each day for the last seven days were the independent variable of the study [ 23 ].…”

“…As shown in Table 3 , from seven quantitative studies, loneliness and depressive symptoms appeared to be the most typical mental health outcomes used by researchers. There were four studies that included loneliness [ 18 , 20 , 21 , 23 ] and four studies involved depressive symptoms [ 19 , 21 , 22 , 24 ] as a mental health outcome. The loneliness scale by de Jong Gierveld and van Tilburg and Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale were commonly used to measure loneliness and depressive symptoms.…”

“…One study assessed satisfaction with a life scale and another study utilised a single-item measure to assess life satisfaction. One study reported flourishing [ 19 ], global measure of mental health [ 19 ], suicidal ideation [ 24 ], and social well-being [ 23 ] as the study’s mental health outcomes.…”

Corona Health—A Study- and Sensor-Based Mobile App Platform Exploring Aspects of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Participants mainly allow the measurement of this type of data and first results indicate that in the context of well-being and mental health app usage statistics might reveal interesting results. For example, a publication based on Corona Health data has found the following: Younger participants with higher use times tended to report less social well-being and higher loneliness, while the opposite effect was found for older adults [ 56 ].…”

Potential of Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) applications in building a smart healthcare system: A systematic review

“…Wetzel et al investigated the informative value of smartphone communication app (CORONA HEALTH APP) data for predicting subjective loneliness and social well-being in Germany and reported relatively high levels of loneliness and low social well-being. 106 Detection of loneliness through passive sensing on personal devices highlight intervention opportunities through mobile technology (smartphones and Fitbits Flex 2) to reduce the impact of loneliness on individuals' health and well-being. 107 …”