Most methods used to make theory-relevant observations of technology use rely on self-report or application logging data where individuals' digital experiences are purposively summarized into aggregates meant to describe how the average individual engages with broadly defined segments of content. This aggregation and averaging masks heterogeneity in how and when individuals actually engage with their technology. In this study, we use screenshots (N > 6 million) collected every five seconds that were sequenced and processed using text and image extraction tools into content-, context-, and temporally-informative "screenomes" from 132 smartphone users over several weeks to examine individuals' digital experiences. Analyses of screenomes highlight extreme between-person and within-person heterogeneity in how individuals switch among and titrate their engagement with different content. Our simple quantifications of textual and graphical content and flow throughout the day illustrate the value screenomes have for the study of individuals' smartphone use and the cognitive and psychological processes that drive use. We demonstrate how temporal, textual, graphical, and topical features of people's smartphone screens can lay the foundation for expanding the Human Screenome Project with full-scale mining that will inform researchers' knowledge of digital life.

中文翻译：

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日常数字生活的特质：使用人类屏幕组项目研究智能手机上的用户行为


大多数用于对技术使用进行与理论相关的观察的方法都依赖于自我报告或应用程序记录数据，其中个人的数字体验被有目的地总结为汇总，旨在描述普通个人如何参与广泛定义的内容片段。这种聚合和平均掩盖了个人实际使用技术的方式和时间的异质性。在这项研究中，我们使用每五秒收集一次的屏幕截图（N> 600 万），这些屏幕截图使用文本和图像提取工具进行排序和处理，将 132 名智能手机用户在几周内收集到的内容、上下文和时间信息“屏幕组”检查个人的数字体验。对屏幕组的分析强调了人与人之间和人内部在如何切换和滴定不同内容的参与方面存在极端的异质性。我们对文本和图形内容以及全天流量的简单量化说明了屏幕组对于研究个人智能手机使用以及驱动使用的认知和心理过程的价值。我们展示了人们智能手机屏幕的时间、文本、图形和主题特征如何为通过全面挖掘扩展人类屏幕组项目奠定基础，这将为研究人员提供有关数字生活的知识。