COVID-19 surveillance in Israeli press: Spatiality, mobility, and control

In March 2020, Israel passed emergency regulations authorizing its internal security agency to track citizens’ mobile phone geolocations in order to tackle the spread of COVID-19. This unprecedented surveillance enterprise attracted extensive media attention and sparked a vigorous public debate regarding technology and democratic values such as privacy, mobility, and control. This article examines press coverage of Israel’s surveillance of its citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic by four leading news sites to identify and map the frames that informed their reports. Based on a thematic analysis, our findings point to supportive and critical constructions of mobile phone location-tracking and organize them within two scapes: personal; and international. These attest to the collective imagining of intimacies and public life, respectively. We draw on the case study to articulate mobile phones as devices that reduce movement into manageable mapped information and individuals into controllable data. Mobile phone location-tracking during the COVID-19 pandemic is understood as turning mobility into order and control.

Your phone ruins our lunch: Attitudes, norms, and valuing the interaction predict phone use and phubbing in dyadic social interactions

Phubbing—ignoring another person in order to use a smartphone instead—is an increasingly common behavior that disrupts interactions and harms relationships. Using the frameworks of the theory of planned behavior and an interaction value approach, we examined the driving factors of phubbing frequency. Four preregistered predictors were tested: attitudes toward phubbing, subjective norms of phubbing, interaction value, that is, the extent of valuing a social interaction, and the perceived interaction value of the partner. After having had lunch together, a total of 128 participants in 64 dyads filled out a survey assessing the four predictors. Dyadic linear mixed model analyses confirmed that a more positive attitude toward phubbing increases phubbing, as well as being phubbed. Moreover, we disentangled screen-sharing time (i.e., using a phone together), phone use, co-present phone use (i.e., using a phone alone), and phubbing: we found that valuing the social interaction more decreased phone use, but not phubbing, and holding more accepting subjective norms on phubbing increased co-present phone use, but not phone use in general. We further found that the person that used their phone first, phubbed more. Overall, this research extends our understanding of the factors driving phubbing and may be fruitfully harnessed to reduce phubbing.

The role of motivation in the digital divide: The moderating effect of device access

Socioeconomic status and demographic determinants are the most commonly examined factors in the study of the second-order digital divide regarding the differences associated with Internet use. The role of motivation in digital inequalities is comparatively less studied. We examine motivation and access variables in this paper. Statistical analysis based on a representative survey conducted in China indicates that motivation is a salient predictor of Internet use when other factors are controlled. In addition, device access significantly moderates the association between motivation and certain types of Internet use. While mobile-only users show the same, if not stronger, motivation for using the Internet for the purposes of study, entertainment, and e-commerce, they actually use those functions to a lesser extent than multimodal users. Hence, the digital divide is a multifaceted issue that requires a comprehensive solution.

You are not alone: Smartphone use, friendship satisfaction, and anxiety during the COVID-19 crisis

Due to ‘stay-at-home’ measures, individuals increasingly relied on smartphones for social connection and for obtaining information about the COVID-19 pandemic. In a two-wave panel survey ( NTime2 = 416), we investigated associations between different types of smartphone use (i.e., communicative and non-communicative), friendship satisfaction, and anxiety during the first lockdown in Austria. Our findings revealed that communicative smartphone use increased friendship satisfaction over time, validating how smartphones can be a positive influence in difficult times. Friendship satisfaction decreased anxiety after one month, signaling the importance of strong friendship networks during the crisis. Contrary to our expectations, non-communicative smartphone use had no effects on friendship satisfaction or anxiety over time. Reciprocal effects showed that anxiety increased both types of smartphone use over time. These findings are discussed in the context of mobile media effects related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

How and when do mobile media demands impact well-being? Explicating the Integrative Model of Mobile Media Use and Need Experiences (IM3UNE)

Using mobile media can be both detrimental and beneficial for well-being. Thus, explaining how and when they elicit such effects is of crucial importance. To explicate boundary conditions and processes for digital well-being, this article introduces the Integrative Model of Mobile Media Use and Need Experiences (IM³UNE). Instead of assuming mobile media to be pathogenic, the IM³UNE offers a salutogenic perspective—it focuses on how we can stay healthy when using mobile media ubiquitously in daily life. More specifically, the model assumes that both the satisfaction and the frustration of basic psychological needs are key underlying mechanisms linking demanding mobile media use to well-being. However, the impact of these mechanisms is contingent on how users perceive, appraise, act on, and make sense of mobile media demands according to their global orientation to life (i.e., their sense of coherence, SOC). Integrating prior work, we theoretically link mindfulness, self-control, and meaningfulness to SOC's central facets, arguing that they represent crucial personal resources required to cope with mobile media demands. Thus, the offers an integrative framework, guiding further research towards a more nuanced study of mobile media’s effect on well-being.

Dance the Night Away: How Automatic TikTok Use Creates Pre-Sleep Cognitive Arousal and Daytime Fatigue

TikTok is one of the most popular apps. TikTok's endless stream of content, the lack time stamps or notifications of ever being “all caught up,” and concealing the phone's clock make it easy to lose track of time on TikTok. However, there is a lack of knowledge about how TikTok use may therefore interfere with our circadian rhythms, particularly our sleep hygiene. By focusing on pre-sleep cognitive arousal, this study aimed to close this knowledge gap by investigating the association between automatic TikTok use and daytime fatigue. We also investigated how individual preferences for sensation seeking and delayed gratification moderated this relationship. Within a sample of 1,050 TikTok/Douyin users in China, automatic TikTok use was associated with increased daytime fatigue that was mediated by higher levels of cognitive arousal before sleep. This relationship was aggravated by a preference for sensation seeking, and attenuated by a preference for delayed gratification. Above and beyond these early empirical insights, we also provide an early explanatory framework that is meant to systematize both existing and future knowledge about the use of TikTok.

A meta-analysis of the overall effect of mHealth physical activity interventions for weight loss and the moderating effect of behavioral change theories, techniques, and mobile technologies

Mobile technologies offer the potential for efficacious and cost-effective lifestyle interventions for weight loss. Extant research indicates that mobile health (mHealth) lifestyle interventions are potentially effective and practical methods of weight loss, but it is less known what intervention characteristics are associated with weight loss effects. This meta-analysis examined the effectiveness of mHealth physical activity interventions for weight loss compared with non-technology/usual care interventions and the moderating effects of behavioral change theories, techniques, and mobile technologies. A total of 24 studies were identified based on inclusion criteria. Weight loss was the primary outcome. The results showed a medium significant effect size ( d = 0.395; 95% CI = 0.243, 0.546; Z = 5.107, p < 0.001; N = 5146) favoring mHealth interventions. Interventions were significantly more effective when wearable devices were used ( QB = 4.102, df = 1, p < 0.05) and when feedback was employed ( QB = 4.566, df = 1, p < 0.05). The implications for future mHealth intervention design are discussed.

Oh, no, Pokémon GO! Media panic and fear of mobility in news coverage of an augmented reality phenomenon

Media panics research is concerned with widespread social anxiety formed around a new technology or medium. This study adds to existing research by characterizing a new form of media panic around augmented reality applications, and specifically that which erupted concerning Pokémon GO, a popular augmented reality game. Based on a content analysis of items related to the game published in Israel's major print and online media in the period immediately following the game's launch, we classify the negative media coverage as a media panic and propose an explanation for its emergence. We argue that the negative reactions to the game stem specifically from the game's unique features and its mobile infrastructure, and especially its use of augmented reality that combines users’ virtual experiences and their interactions in actual physical space. We identify a third wave of mobile panic in this current phenomenon, one which takes into account the unique features of mobile technology as infrastructure for augmented reality applications. In contrast to previous incidents of media panic that focused on the harmful effects of increased technology use by young users, and their detachment from their physical environment, this wave represents an essentially opposite phenomenon, in which physical mobility itself, facilitated by the use of augmented reality, is deemed dangerous to players’ health and safety.