The effect of digital detox using the MinimalistPhone app on the behavior of young users and their emotional experience.

Description

Digital detox is a relatively new and rapidly evolving concept that encompasses practices and activities varying in intensity, restriction, duration, and level of disconnection. Given the complexity of comprehensively addressing this topic, our study focused on the concept of minimalistic detox through the use of the MinimalistPhone app. Using a pretest-posttest design with an experimental and control group, we examined the effects of an intervention implemented via the MinimalistPhone application. Our primary goal was to observe specific changes in behavior and smartphone usage, particularly in the areas of habitual behavior, process usage, and social usage, within the context of reducing context-specific stimuli that trigger sequences of undesirable habitual behavior. By assessing levels of experienced positive and negative affect related to smartphone usage, we evaluated the intervention's effect on affective well-being. Additionally, we incorporated objective data on total smartphone screen time as a supplementary measure of smartphone usage change. The study included 57 participants, divided into an experimental group (N = 29; mean age = 22.8 years; SD = 5.01) and a control group (N = 28; mean age = 25 years; SD = 8.08). Participants in the experimental group used the MinimalistPhone app for 14 days. The app encourages intentional smartphone use by disrupting habits and removing visual cues that trigger unconscious behavior. It increases cognitive effort through additional steps, such as searching an alphabetical list and tracking usage time, making it less intuitive for users reliant on icons. Data were collected on habitual smartphone usage (van Deursen et al., 2015), process and social smartphone usage (Limayem et al., 2003; van Deursen et al., 2015), affective states (via PANAS; Watson et al., 1988), and objectively measured screen time before and after the intervention. Our findings supported the hypothesis that the MinimalistPhone application reduces habitual behavior and total screen time. However, these results should be interpreted cautiously due to notable pretest differences between the groups. In terms of procedural smartphone use, the experimental group exhibited greater variability in pretest-to-posttest change compared to the control group. Conversely, social smartphone use remained relatively stable in the experimental group, with only small differences between pretest and posttest. The intervention did not significantly affect affective states. The dataset includes pretest and posttest data on habitual behavior, procedural and social smartphone use, screen time, and positive and negative affect related to smartphone usage, along with a detailed data description.

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