Characterizing Digital Communication Device Use Among Young People From 4 European Countries: Cross-Sectional Survey Study

Background: Digital communication device use is changing rapidly among young people, and current research on this topic is limited or outdated. Objective: We aimed to describe the use of digital communication devices of young people from four European countries and investigate its socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Methods: In 2023, we administered an online survey to a convenience sample of 4,000 young people aged 16-25 in Italy, Poland, Spain, and Switzerland. Participants reported on their regular use of smartphones, tablets, laptops, cordless phones, and smartwatches/activity trackers. Participants answered which activities they regularly engaged with on their devices, the duration of time spent on these devices and activities, and in what position the device was used with respect to their body over the past 3 months. We also collected information on participant socioeconomic and demographic characteristics including age, gender, country of birth, employment status, parental education, and urbanicity of the place of residency. Results: Reported prevalence of device use was 90.9% for smartphones, 33.2% for tablets, 68.7% for laptops, 11.6% for cordless phones, and 23.3% for smartwatch/activity trackers. Older age groups and females reported higher device use across most devices. The activities reported with the highest activity engagement for smartphones were ‘Voice calls’ (70.2%), ‘Social media’ (74.1%), and ‘Texting, E-mailing, Internet’ (69.6%). For tablets and laptops, they were ‘Video streaming’ (63.9% and 55.6%, respectively), ‘Texting, E-mailing, Internet’ (50.6% and 44.3%, respectively), and ‘Social media usage’ (49.6% and 55.3%, respectively). On average, young people used their smartphones 60.9 minutes per day for texting, e-mailing, and internet, 85.2 minutes per day for social media, 46.9 minutes per day video streaming, and 53.7 minutes per day music streaming. Differences in the duration of use across activities and devices were found among socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, but inconsistent patterns were observed. For example, the two oldest age groups reported lower duration of use in smartphones for voice calls, social media, video streaming, and music streaming compared to the youngest age group, but reported higher duration of use in smartphones for video calls and texting/e-mailing/internet. Moreover, females reported higher duration of use for almost all activities on smartphones compared to males, except for online gaming, which males reported higher duration of use. Conclusions: Our findings provide novel information on digital communication device use by young people while expanding on the characterizations. We identified differences between socioeconomic and demographic characteristics that warrant further investigation. These results can be used as a point of reference of digital communication devices within public health research, including health communication strategies or epidemiological research.