ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Digital Mental Health
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1595536
This article is part of the Research TopicSocial Interaction in Cyberspace: Online Gaming, Social Media, and Mental HealthView all 5 articles
New measurements of digital technology use: The Immersion in Digital Life and Quality of Digital Experience Scales
Provisionally accepted
Joanna Witowska1
Ruth Sarah Ogden2*
Christine Schoetensack2
Katarzyna Goncikowska3
Marc Wittmann4
Vanda Černohorská5
Nuria Codina6
Chantal Martin Soelch7
Mónica Fernández Boente7
Georgina Giner6
José Vicente Pestana6
Julie Papastamatelou4- 1University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Masovian, Poland
- 2Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom
- 3Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Masovian, Poland
- 4Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health (IGPP), Freiburg, Germany
- 5Institute of Philosophy (ASCR), Prague, Prague, Czechia
- 6University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
- 7Département de Psychologie clinique et de la santé, Université de Fribourg, Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
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Current methods of assessing digital technology use fail to adequately capture a holistic picture of how individuals experience digital technology during daily life. This is because current measures focus on measuring the frequency/duration of specific forms of technology use or problematic use. This research aimed to create two general measures of digital technology use and experience, respectively, which are flexible amid technological changes. The measured constructs were specified via bottom-up analysis of an international qualitative study (N=300) on post-covid digital practices. Across three studies we developed and validated the measures using data from 2227 participants. Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses indicated that the Quality of Digital Experience Scale contains 26 items, measuring individuals' perceptions and overall experience of digital technology usage and its impact on Well-being, Time and Efficiency, and Social Connectedness. The second scale, the Immersion in Digital Life Scale consists of five separate questions concerning individuals' estimation of how much digital technology is present in different areas of life.The scales offer reliable measurements of individuals' interactions with technology in the digital era.Their ability to capture engagement beyond frequency and duration will facilitate greater understanding of the complexities of the positive and negative impacts of digital practices on individuals and societies.
Keywords: Immersion, digital experience, Digital technology, Measurements, scale development
Received: 18 Mar 2025; Accepted: 03 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Witowska, Ogden, Schoetensack, Goncikowska, Wittmann, Černohorská, Codina, Martin Soelch, Fernández Boente, Giner, Pestana and Papastamatelou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ruth Sarah Ogden, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom
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