Towards a deeper understanding of social media behavior: patterns and trends

In many studies addressing smartphone usage, reliance on self-reported data, typically collected through questionnaires, has been commonplace. However, these investigations often offered a broad overview of overall smartphone usage without delving into specific app categories. This study, in contrast, employed a dataset derived from a smartphone application that objectively recorded user activities, encompassing details such as accessed apps and the initiation and termination times of each app session. Our analysis focused on discerning patterns of social media engagement within the subset of SPACE app utilized. The inferential analysis utilized the Mann–Whitney U test. Notably, the findings unveiled that youngsters exhibit a higher smartphone usage duration compared to grownups. Additionally, a gender-based disparity was observed, with females spending more time on social media than their male counterparts. Furthermore, females demonstrated a higher likelihood of initiating social media apps in comparison to males. This research, grounded in objective data, provides a nuanced understanding of social media engagement.