“What relationship do people have with their smartphones, if any and how does this correlate to their mental and emotional states?”

9 participants
8 female, 1 male participant
Convenient Sampling
Aged between 20-30 yrs
67% respondents were Latinx; 33% were Asian
56% respondents were International Students

Informed Consent
Participants received clear consent information (purpose, procedure, time, data use)
Participation was voluntary; all participants were 18+
Verbal consent obtained before any audio/video recording

Right to Withdraw
Participants could skip questions or withdraw at any time
No penalty or explanation requiredg

Confidentiality & Anonymity
Data anonymized using participant codes
No identifying information in reports or presentations
Raw data accessible only to the research team

Diary Studies
Participants filled out an illustrated diary template thrice a day for 3 days

The diary template can be found here

Contextual Interviews
We conducted 30 min semi-structured interviews with participants while observing them use their smartphones

Interpretation Sessions

3 sessions
60-90 minutes
In-person
Conducted within 48 hours of Interviews
Generated Affinity Notes and draft Models

Affinity Notes

Draft Models

Smartphone-induced Anxiety
7 out of 9 participants reported feeling anxiety or other negative feelings after scrolling

Most Frequent Apps
Instagram
TikTok
Messages
Spotify

Double Screening
78% participants reported double-screening, often during academic pressure or boredom

Phones as Emotional Anchors
All the international students within our participant pool used phones as emotional anchors during stress, loneliness, or academic pressure

The Affinity Notes were re-organized according to their relationships and an Affinity Diagram was produced.

The diagram can be viewed in its entirety here

Two distinct personas emerged from our Affinity Diagram - Daniela (International Student) and Naomi (Working Professional)

We organized a Wall Walk consisting of our Affinity Diagram, Personas and Sensation Boards inviting faculty members and fellow students. They engaged silently with the Wall and left us Questions and Hot Ideas in the form of sticky notes.

You can watch a video of the Wall Walk here

We re-iterated some of the Visioning Sketches before the finalizing the Product Concept based on the Questions and Hot Ideas received during the Wall Walk

Celebrating You
In our research, many users reported feeling inferior after comparing their own lives with that of others in social media. In such moments, we propose showing users positive memories and accomplishments from their own life to help them feel better

ScrollALT
Some users said they use smartphones simply because they cannot find alternative real-life activities to engage in. ScrollALT is a lock-screen widget that shows users what activities they could partake in instead of doomscrolling on their phones

Focus Mode 2.0
Users reported that traditional Focus Mode or Digital Wellbeing tools were insufficient to regulate their smartphone usage as they are very easy to bypass. To solve this, we came up with alerts that users can personalize to improve efficacy.

MoodCloud
An AI-based Assistant that monitors your smartphone usage, generates weekly reports and provides contextual alerts to regulate usage

We performed an FDV (Feasibility, Desirability and Viability) Analysis of each of the ideas and ensured they were grounded in authentic research data

As a team, we placed stickers on the ideas indicating whether we want to keep them, toss them or work on them further

Mindfulness 2.0 is an OS-level digital well-being tool that helps users stay aware of their emotional state, usage patterns, and intentions

What I Learned

Interpretivism vs Positivism
While a Positivist research stance would opine that smartphone usage is inherently “bad”, our research revealed that some users felt productive because of it. This makes our research take more of an Interpretivist stance.

Benefits of Multiple Research Methods
Implementing more than one research method not only helps achieve triangulation but also allows us to offset the shortcomings of each method with the strengths of the other

The audience was not there with us!
Often while immersed deep in research for a long time, we tend to take certain aspects for granted. While presenting our findings to the audience, we may make the mistake of skipping those things which lead to “holes” in the narrative. Thus, while presenting, we must go back to the basics!

Challenges/Trade-Offs

Absence of Male Perspective
Only 1 out of 9 research participants was male. Thus, our findings may have been heavily skewed towards female smartphone users

Small Sample Size and Convenient Sampling
A sample size of 9 is too small to make any conclusive remarks. It can merely indicate potential areas of interest

Use of AI Tools for Visualization
GenAI tools were used for visualization purposes throughout the project. While they did not influence data collection, analysis, or interpretation, they may shape how findings are visually perceived.

Privacy Risks in Product Concept
Most of our proposed solutions revolve collecting, storing and analyzing sensitive user data. However, our solution does not provide any answer to how concerns regarding privacy and ethics would be handled

What would I do differently now?

Recruit more diverse participants in terms of gender, race and occupation

Conduct a longitudinal study to detect whether there are any changes in pattern in the long term

Consider user privacy while finalizing the product concept

I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Stephanie Valencia, PhD for being such a wonderful mentor and guide throughout the research process along with the TAs, Pooja and Ethan!

I also thank those who interacted with the Wall Walk and left invaluable feedbacks and ideas!

Lastly, thank you for reading my portfolio!

Thanks for Reading

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