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Volume 18
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Article

“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

by
Britta Wetzel
1,
Rüdiger Pryss
2,
Harald Baumeister
3,
Johanna-Sophie Edler
1,
Ana Sofia Oliveira Gonçalves
4 and
Caroline Cohrdes
1,*
1
Mental Health Research Unit, Department of Epidemiology and Health Monitoring, Robert Koch Institute, 12101 Berlin, Germany
2
Institute of Clinical Epidemiology and Biometry, Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg, 97080 Würzburg, Germany
3
Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Ulm University, 89081 Ulm, Germany
4
Institute of Public Health, Charité—Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(12), 6212; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126212
Submission received: 6 May 2021 / Revised: 1 June 2021 / Accepted: 3 June 2021 / Published: 8 June 2021
(This article belongs to the Section Mental Health)
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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.
Keywords: loneliness; social well-being; passive data; app; smartphone communication; COVID-19; social media use; age differences; public mental health; mental health monitoring loneliness; social well-being; passive data; app; smartphone communication; COVID-19; social media use; age differences; public mental health; mental health monitoring

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MDPI and ACS Style

Wetzel, B.; Pryss, R.; Baumeister, H.; Edler, J.-S.; Gonçalves, A.S.O.; Cohrdes, C. “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. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 6212. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126212

AMA Style

Wetzel B, Pryss R, Baumeister H, Edler J-S, Gonçalves ASO, Cohrdes C. “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. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2021; 18(12):6212. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126212

Chicago/Turabian Style

Wetzel, Britta, Rüdiger Pryss, Harald Baumeister, Johanna-Sophie Edler, Ana Sofia Oliveira Gonçalves, and Caroline Cohrdes. 2021. "“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" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, no. 12: 6212. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126212

APA Style

Wetzel, B., Pryss, R., Baumeister, H., Edler, J.-S., Gonçalves, A. S. O., & Cohrdes, C. (2021). “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. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(12), 6212. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126212

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