The Family Level Assessment of Screen Use-Mobile Approach: Development of an Approach to Measure Children's Mobile...

Area of Science:

• Pediatric digital health
• Human-computer interaction
• Child development

Background:

• Increased mobile device use in children is linked to negative health and academic outcomes.
• Current screen time measurement methods (self-report, parent-proxy) are often imprecise or biased.
• Accurate measurement of children's screen time is crucial for understanding its impact.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the feasibility of the Family Level Assessment of Screen Use (FLASH)-mobile approach for measuring children's mobile device screen time.
• To leverage Android platform features for an innovative screen time measurement method.
• To assess the usability and accuracy of the FLASH-mobile approach in diverse settings.

Main Methods:

• Pilot study involving 48 parent-child dyads (ages 6-11) in laboratory and home settings.
• Utilized the FLASH-mobile approach on Android devices, comparing results to a gold standard (video coding).
• Collected qualitative feedback from parents and children on the approach's utility and potential improvements.

Main Results:

• FLASH-mobile achieved high compliance rates (>90% smartphones, >80% tablets) for user identification.
• Mean agreement of 73.6% was observed between FLASH-mobile and the gold standard in laboratory settings.
• Parents found the approach useful for tracking time and app usage, though privacy concerns were noted.

Conclusions:

• The FLASH-mobile approach provides a novel and more accurate method for measuring children's mobile device use over extended periods.
• This method is effective even when devices are shared within families.
• Further validation and enhancement of FLASH-mobile can significantly advance research in pediatric screen time measurement.