Smartphones are now the most commonly used device for young people to access the internet. However,
there are concerns about the quality of responses received from those completing online surveys on
smartphones as opposed to other devices. So far, the evidence has been mixed although little research
has focused on young people in particular.
This paper presents evidence of the effect of smartphone completion on response quality amongst
a cohort of young people aged 16-17, who have grown up in the time of widespread smartphone use.
Using data from the fourth wave of the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England 2 (LSYPE2), we
investigated five areas of data quality: missingness, satisficing, survey length, response accuracy and
social desirability bias. Our principal conclusion is that there is little evidence that the quality of data
is any lower for young people who take part on smartphones compared with other devices.
