Disentangling the Link between Creativity and Technology Use Individual differences in smartphone and social media (over)use

The recent years have seen a dramatic surge in smartphone and social media usage, with the latter likely being a driving force for smartphone use disorder (SmUD) tendencies. Smartphones are popularly perceived to suppress creativity by occupying moments of free thought and stealing time from developing new ideas. This work contributes to the ongoing debate by providing a concise overview of contradictory literature findings, followed by presenting new data. In a sample of N = 509, self-rated creative self-efficacy (CSE) was inversely related to SmUD tendencies and, in subgroups of different sizes, to messenger overuse, the frequency of Facebook and Instagram use. Notably, there was no such negative relationship between technology use variables and the quantity of ideas (fluency) generated in divergent thinking (DT) tasks. However, the subjective and objective creative potential estimates were positively associated. A heterogeneity analysis, in which the sample was split by sex, age, population group, and device used to participate in the study, uncovered varying correlations between technology (over)use and creativity within some subsample pairs. Notable findings included a positive correlation between idea richness and time spent online with a stationary device (laptop/PC), among women, students and those who participated in the study with non-mobile devices. Conversely, lower fluency scores were associated with more frequent Instagram use among males, and higher WhatsApp use among older generations. Overall, this study reveals a multifaceted relationship between creativity and media use, which challenges prevailing media and public perceptions, whereby the mostly small effect sizes suggest negligible connections.