I mentioned the Big Five personality traits before; research into personality traits (and “sub-traits”) and smart phone usage appear to show that some traits are correlated to usage:
- Weather app use predicts conscientiousness
- Wake-up time predicts ambition
- Nighttime phone ringing predicts extraversion
Those I can connect on a sort-of-intuitive level, but these surprise me:
- Music loudness predicts openness to ideas
- Sports app use predicts openness to aesthetics
Some of these correlations are quite solid (only the darkest block are relevant in my view):
From a privacy perspective, this is very likely valuable information and I wonder if our app usage is protected information under GDPR. As the correlation is strongest in either cross-app usage or in system apps, it’s mostly Apple and Google who will have access to the information. I’d consider it likely that the relevant information is (also) transmitted to Apple and Google as part of a general how-are-people-using-smartphones diagnostic.
Henning's blog 