Science Says Smartphones Undermine Enjoyment Of Social Interactions

Trending News: Smartphones Really Are Ruining Our Social Interactions

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Long Story Short

Fresh research has found that smartphones undermine our enjoyment of face-to-face social interactions.

Long Story

What happens at the dinner table in your house when conversation falters? Does everyone get out their smartphones? A 2015 Pew study said that, yes, y’all probably do — in that research, 90% of cell phone owners had used their phone during their most recent social activity.

Ryan Dwyer of the University of British Columbia wanted to look into the implications of this. “In the last 10 years, smartphones have revolutionised how we live by keeping us constantly connected online,” the postdoctoral student told Psypost. “We wanted to know if this might be impacting our real world social interactions. For example, my family often spends holidays looking at our phones together. Is this bad?”

To do so, Dwyer headed up two studies, publishing the results in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. The first study involved dividing 300 participants into two groups and sending them to a restaurant with family members. Those (and their families) in the first group placed their phones on the table. The second group kept their phones out of sight completely.

The participants then filled out a survey, rating the experience with the meal. Their answers indicated it was less enjoyable and that people were more distracted when phones were left on the table. Surprise, surprise.

A second study involved 123 participants being surveyed five times a day for a week. The results here had people reporting lower enjoyment and feeling more distracted when they used their smartphones during face-to-face social interactions.

In both studies, researchers noted that phone use went hand-in-hand with more boredom and worse overall mood. In the paper, Dwyer wrote that the effect from the cell phones was actually quite small, but can compound over time.

He also points out that there are myriad other distractions in everyday life but with phones there’s one important difference. “Phones provide access to a virtually infinite array of potential diversions, while being so portable that they are almost always with us, enabling them to easily pervade our social interactions,” Dwyer says in the study.

Dwyer rounds out the paper by saying that governments and workplaces have clamped down on smartphone use because it’s distracting and has serious consequences for safety on the one hand, and productivity on the other.

It follows, then, that either formally or informally, we need to consider the social norms surrounding smartphones, because they’re distracting us from truly engaging with people.