Does Phone Use Facilitate Coping? Exploring Impact of Phone Use on Coping Effort in Stressful Situations

It was often argued that smartphones facilitate access to a large number of resources whenever and wherever needed. In stressful instances, smartphone-enabled easy access could be particularly relevant as they could reduce the effort needed to access resources and thereby increase efficient coping with stressful instances. However, while this is often argued for it has not been tested. This research report builds on a secondary analysis of two experience sampling studies on the use of phones for coping with stress in two samples of mothers (NStudy1 = 50; NStudy2 = 225). Both studies asked mothers to report on stressful situations that had happened in the last two hours several times a day. We tested whether phone use in a stressful situation was related to less perceived coping effort and whether decreased coping effort related to more perceived coping efficacy. We find no support for the relation between effort and coping efficacy and mixed support for the relation of phone use and effort. Especially the inconclusive relationship between effort and smartphone use is surprising and challenges often used arguments in the mobile communication literature. Exploratory analyses suggest that the relationship between coping effort and phone use might be different depending on which coping strategy is applied.