Digital Wellbeing Initiative • What changes?

The Digital Wellbeing Initiative is changing.

After analyzing the data we have collected so far, we concluded that we need to adjust the terms of the initiative to improve our results and gain new insights. Since we want to be transparent to the participants, they will have to opt in to the new terms to continue participating.

Here is what is changing:

More precise app usage time

Our current app usage time data is based on estimates. To improve the quality of our results, we will start tracking app usage via Android's native usage tracking. This requires granting an additional permission. If the permission is not granted, we will continue using our less precise estimates.

Also, for privacy reasons, we excluded apps with low download numbers as they could be used to identify users to a degree. Since these apps are a large part of the overall app usage (13.3%), we are now working on a system to include information about these apps without compromising privacy by categorizing them and reporting the category instead of the app. We are also thinking about changing what is considered a lesser-known app.

New metadata

Our reports now include information about the participants' devices: the Android version, manufacturer, and model name. We do this to identify device specific behavior which potentially causes alterations in collected data.

We are also adding the country the device is in to identify cultural bias in our data and make comparing our results with public datasets possible.

New surveys

Just using data about how phones are used limits what conclusions we can come to. Since our goal is satisfaction with how users interact their phones, we need our participants' subjective opinions. This is why we will add more surveys to the initiative.

Information about apps without launches

To better understand app usage, we will now also track apps not launched during the report's evaluation period.