Acceptance of Smartphone Technologies for Social Science Data Collection

The rising spread of smartphones in the general population offers empirical social research new opportunities for collecting data about attitudes and behaviours. Smartphones allow administering surveys and, at the same time, collecting detailed behavioural data through the smartphone’s built-in sensors. However, a major challenge of smartphone-based data collection is the low willingness of the population to participate. Selective participation by certain subgroups of the population can lead to biased results.
This project aims to develop and test a theoretical framework of the social acceptance of smartphones as a data collection tool in empirical social research. The aim is to improve the representativeness of smartphone-based studies. The main questions are which social psychological factors explain the willingness to participate and which measures can be used to increase this willingness. The theoretical framework will be developed based on a systematic review of technology acceptance theories as well as qualitative in-depth interviews with smartphone users and tested as part of a smartphone data collection.