数字化分心与同伴影响：移动应用使用对学业与劳动力市场结果的影响

DIGITAL DISTRACTIONS WITH PEER INFLUENCE:THE IMPACT OF MOBILE APP USAGE ONACADEMIC AND LABOR MARKET OUTCOMES Panle Jia BarwickSiyu ChenChao FuTeng Li Working Paper 33054http://www.nber.org/papers/w33054 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH1050 Massachusetts AvenueCambridge, MA 02138October 2024, Revised September 2025 We are grateful to the editors Lawrence Katz and Nathan Nunn, and five anonymous referees. WethankHunt Allcott,Luigi Pistaferri,Uta Schönberg,Chris Taber,and various seminarparticipants for their helpful comments and Chenyan Gong for outstanding research assistance.An exemption for the analyses conducted in this paper was granted by the Institutional ReviewBoard of Social Science and Humanities at JiNan University (IRB No.A2408001-038). Datacollection and analysis were conducted without oversight of the University of Wisconsin-Madison IRB, and oversight was not ceded to JiNan University, as required by UW-Madisonpolicies and procedures. All data sets used in the analysis were pre-merged and anonymized bythe data provider (the authors were not involved in the data merge process); the merged andanonymized data are stored and processed in a fully secured data lab (offline without USBaccess) in China by the data provider. The data are processed under strict rules to protectindividual privacy, and only authorized staff can enter the secured lab. None of the authors haveaccess to any form of the raw or processed data. We wrote executable files that are executed onthe pre-merged data by the authorized staff of the data provider and only had access to summarystatistics, regression coefficients, and figures generated by these executable files. All errors areour own. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect theviews of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have notbeen peer-reviewedor been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors thataccompanies officialNBER publications. © 2024 by Panle Jia Barwick, Siyu Chen, Chao Fu, and Teng Li. All rights reserved. Short sectionsof text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that fullcredit, including © notice, is given to the source. Digital Distractions with Peer Influence: The Impact of Mobile App Usage on Academic andLabor Market OutcomesPanle Jia Barwick, Siyu Chen, Chao Fu, and Teng LiNBER Working Paper No. 33054October 2024, Revised September 2025JEL No. D12, D90, E24, I23, L82, L86, Z13 ABSTRACT Concerns about excessive mobile phone use among youth are mounting. We present, to ourknowledge,the first estimates of both behavioral and contextual peer effects, along withcomprehensive evidenceon how students’ own and their peers’ app usage affect academicperformance, physical health, andlabor market outcomes. Our analysis draws on administrativedata from a Chinese university coveringthree student cohorts over four years. We exploit randomroommate assignments, an exogenous policyshock, and an exogenous event for identification. Appusage is contagious: a one s.d. increase in roommates’in-college app usage raises own usage by5.8%. High app usage is harmful across all measured outcomes.A one s.d. increase in app usagereduces GPAs by 36.2% of a within-cohort-major s.d. and lowerswages by 2.3%. Roommates’app usage reduces a student’s GPAs and wages through both disruptionsand behavioral spillovers,generating a total negative effect that exceeds half the magnitude of theimpact from the student’sown app usage. Extending China’s three-hour-per-week gaming restrictionfor minors to collegestudents would boost their initial wages by 0.9%. High-frequency GPS and appusage data showthat heavy app users spend less time in study halls, are more frequently late or absentfrom class,and get less sleep. Panle Jia BarwickUniversity of Wisconsin - MadisonDepartment of Economicsand CEPRand also NBERpanle.barwick@gmail.com Chao FuUniversity of Wisconsin - MadisonDepartment of Economicsand NBERcfu@ssc.wisc.edu Teng LiSun Yat-sen Universityltsysu1990@gmail.com Siyu ChenJinan Universitychensynus1220@gmail.com 1Introduction Mobile apps have brought significant convenience to our daily lives, yet concerns are growingabout their over-usage.1 There is mounting evidence across the globe that teenagers andyoung adults are especially prone to excessive and sometimes inappropriate use of mobileapps. According to a 2018 survey in China, 79% of college students reported playing mobilegames during class, spending on average one-third of lecture time on their phones.2A 2019UK study found that 39% of young adults reported experiencing smartphone addiction (Sohnet al., 2021). In the U.S., over 70% of high school teachers surveyed in 2023 identified phonedistractions as a significant classroom issue (Lin et al., 2024). Similarly, a 2023 study acrossOECD countries reported that 65% of students were distracted by the