Managing Digital Addiction

Last registered on April 30, 2025

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Managing Digital Addiction

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0015573

Initial registration date

April 12, 2025

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

April 30, 2025, 8:32 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

China

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Zhongwen Chen

Affiliation

Monash University

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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Juanjuan Meng

PI Affiliation

Peking University

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Erte Xiao

PI Affiliation

Monash University

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Xiaojian Zhao

PI Affiliation

Monash University

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Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2025-04-13

End date

2025-06-01

Keywords

Behavior

Additional Keywords

Screen Time, Feedback Information, Douyin

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

The rise of smartphones and social media has led to a sharp increase in screen time, especially on short-video apps like Douyin. This has raised concerns about productivity, mental health, and digital well-being. While excessive screen time is often seen as a self-control problem, it may also be linked to a lack of self-awareness about one's self-control ability, underscoring the need for raising self-awareness, such as through information feedback. In this study, we investigate whether providing individuals with their actual Douyin usage, coupled with informing them about their under/overestimation pattern, can enhance their awareness and subsequently influence their future Douyin and screen time usage.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Chen, Zhongwen et al. 2025. "Managing Digital Addiction." AEA RCT Registry. April 30. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15573-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Our experiment consists of three groups, including Control, No-Feedback, and Feedback groups, and lasts for four weeks, with surveys administered weekly.

Intervention (Hidden)

Intervention Start Date

2025-04-20

Intervention End Date

2025-06-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Douyin Usage

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Our primary outcome is actual Douyin usage, measured weekly during the intervention period (Weeks 2–4) as the average daily usage time (in minutes) over each 7-day period, based on data automatically recorded by the Douyin/smartphone’s built-in tracking function. In the endline survey, participants in all groups submit four weeks of historical Douyin usage data via screenshots from the phone’s screen-time tracking function, enabling us to construct a consistent usage panel across groups. Based on our theoretical framework, we will examine the effect of feedback on those who underestimated screen time and those who overestimated it separately.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Screen Time Usage

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Our secondary outcome is total smartphone screen time usage, which captures overall screen time usage across all apps. This measure allows us to test for substitution effects — that is, whether individuals who reduce their Douyin usage compensate by spending more time on other apps.

Experimental Design

We recruit participants through two channels: a university in China and an online survey platform. To be eligible for this study, participants must be active Douyin users and must use either an iPhone or a Xiaomi smartphone, both of which support the screen-time tracking functionality required for our data collection.

Experimental Design Details

Our experiment consists of three groups, including Control, No-Feedback, and Feedback and lasts for four weeks, with surveys administered weekly.

Control Group: Participants in the Control group do not receive any intervention throughout the study. This group serves as a baseline to measure natural Douyin usage, absent prediction elicitation or information feedback.

No-Feedback Group: Participants in the No-Feedback group are asked each week, starting from Week 1, to predict their average daily Douyin usage for the following week. However, they are not required to submit actual usage screenshots during the intervention period.

Feedback Group: Participants in the Feedback group are similarly asked to predict their average daily Douyin usage for the following week, beginning in Week 1. Starting in Week 2, participants upload screenshots of their actual Douyin usage for that week. After submitting the screenshots, participants are reminded of their predictions from the previous week’s survey and explicitly asked whether they underestimated or overestimated their usage.

In all groups, during the endline survey at the end of Week 4, participants are asked to submit screenshots showing their weekly Douyin usage and total smartphone screen time over the preceding four weeks.

Randomization Method

Randomization done by a computer

Randomization Unit

Experimental Sessions

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

The study includes two experimental sessions, one conducted with participants from a university subject pool and the other with participants recruited via the online survey platform SurveyMars.

Sample size: planned number of observations

The total planned sample consists of 1,500 students from the university subject pool and 300 participants from the SurveyMars subject pool. This sample size is based on subgroup proportions observed in a prior study and power calculations. We aim for at least 150 participants in the smallest subgroup (the "overestimate" group), which typically represents about one-third of each treatment arm. Thus, we target at least 450 participants per treatment group. Combining the three treatment groups requires 1,350 participants. To account for up to 25% attrition over the four-week study period, we set the initial recruitment target at 1,800 participants.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

The total planned sample consists of 1,500 students from the university subject pool and 300 participants from the SurveyMars subject pool, for a total of 1,800 participants. Participants are randomly assigned to one of three groups: Control (600), No-Feedback (600), and Feedback (600).

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB