Time spent with friends is worth less for those who use the smartphone

Connecting Alone: Smartphone Use, Quality of Social Interactions and Well-being. Valentina Rotondi, Luca Stanca, and Miriam Tomasuolo. Journal of Economic Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2017.09.001

Highlights
•    We study the effect of the smartphone on the quality of social interactions.
•    We argue that the smartphone reduces the quality of face-to-face interactions.
•    We test this hypothesis in a large sample of Italian individuals.
•    We find that time spent with friends is worth less for those who use the smartphone.
•    This finding holds in terms of both life satisfaction and satisfaction with friends.

Abstract: This paper investigates the role played by the smartphone for the quality of social interactions and subjective well-being. We argue that, due to its intrusiveness, the smartphone reduces the quality of face-to-face interactions and, as a consequence, their positive impact on well-being. We test this hypothesis in a large and representative sample of Italian individuals. The results indicate that time spent with friends is worth less, in terms of life satisfaction, for individuals who use the smartphone. This finding is robust to the use of instrumental variables estimation to deal with possible endogeneity. We also show that, consistent with our hypothesis, the positive association between time spent with friends and satisfaction with friends is less strong for individuals who use the smartphone.

Keywords: Smartphone; Social interactions; Subjective well-being

JEL classification: A12; I31; O33