Professional Digital Well-Being: An In Situ Investigation into the Impact of Using Screen Time Regulation at Work

The smartphone has not only become our everyday companion but increasingly also led to concerns about digital well-being. Screen time regulation applications aim to tackle these concerns through promoting mindful smartphone use. Despite being predominantly focused on private contexts, they can also help at work in that they enhance task focus and cognitive capacity management. The development of such applications, however, faces certain challenges, particularly when it comes to finding the right balance between what users want in terms of technological functionality, and what tools need to offer to actually change smartphone interaction behavior. Thus, the goal of the preliminary research presented in this article was to investigate the effect of and peoples’ perceptions towards the use of screen time regulation at work. Our analysis focused on a single case study, which ensured a sample frame where all study participants work under similar conditions and within a comparable working environment. We used a tripartite empirical study methodology, which started with a questionnaire survey ( \(n=74\) ) exploring peoples’ smartphone interaction behavior at work. This was followed by a field experiment in which \(n=20\) employees were asked to log their smartphone interactions with and without screen time regulation. Finally, we asked the same participants to provide feedback on their intervention experiences. Results show that the use of screen time regulation does indeed reduce people’s time spent with the smartphone. We also found that participants find it useful, yet that they are afraid of a company-driven introduction or the implementation of respective company-wide policies.