Lock n’ LoL: Group-based Limiting Assistance App to Mitigate Smartphone Distractions for Group Activities

Abstract

Prior studies have addressed many negative aspects of mobile distractions in group activities. In this paper, we present Lock n’ LoL. This is an application designed to help users focus on their group activities by allowing group members to limit their smartphone usage together. In particular, it provides synchronous social awareness of each other’s limiting behavior. This synchronous social awareness can arouse feelings of connectedness among group members and can mitigate social vulnerability due to smartphone distraction (e.g., social exclusion) that often results in poor social experiences. After following an iterative prototyping process, we conducted a large-scale user study (n = 976) via real field deployment. The study results revealed how the participants used Lock n’ LoL in their diverse contexts and how Lock n’ LoL helped them to mitigate smartphone distractions.