Over the past decade, smartphones have become an indispensable tool in our daily lives.
Wake up in the morning, brush a circle of friends for a while; on the way to work, brush a little microblog; go to the company to go to the toilet, brush a little vibrato; eat at noon, watch a little drama; get sleepy in the afternoon, chat for a while gossip; come home at night, play a game for a while; brush the circle of friends for a while before going to bed.
It always feels like it's not us playing with our phones now, it's the phones that are playing with us. From neck pain to addictive behavior, some of the negative consequences of smartphone overuse are already there for all to see.
So, the emergence of smart phones, has really made our lives better? Or is our life really better without smartphones?
In order to explore this problem scientifically and rigorously, psychologists at the Center for Mental Health Research and Treatment at ruhr-universit t Bochum (RUB) in Germany conducted an experimental intervention study. The results were published in a recent journal of Experimental Psychology.
Specifically, the researchers recruited 619 people to participate in the experiment and randomly divided them into three groups. Of those, 200 gave up their smartphones entirely for a week; 226 reduced their daily use of smartphones by an hour; and 193 kept their smartphone habits without making any changes.
The researchers followed all participants back one month and four months after the intervention to understand their lifestyle habits and well-being. Specific questions include whether they are now participating in more sports activities. How many cigarettes do they smoke a day now? How happy are they with their current life? Do they show any signs of anxiety or depression?
By comparing the effects of completely abstaining from smartphones with reducing the amount of time spent looking at screens every day, as well as the changing lifestyles of participants who continued to use smartphones, the researchers found that reducing daily use of smartphones had a positive effect on a person's sense of well-being.
If you reduce smartphone use by one hour a day, you can reduce anxiety and improve life satisfaction. At the same time, life satisfaction and physical activity time also increased, symptoms of depression and anxiety, and nicotine consumption decreased.
And the results also found that in order to have a better and more satisfying life, and less anxiety, there is no need to give up using smartphones altogether.
Over the long term, the week-long intervention changed participants' habits, with the group members who completely rehabilitated their smartphones spending an average of 38 minutes less each day than before, even four months after the end of the experiment, while the group members who spent 1 hour less time per day during the experiment and 45 minutes less time per day after four months than before.
The author of the study paper, Dr Julia Brailovskaia of the Centre for Mental Health Research and Treatment at the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, concludes, "There is no need to give up smartphones altogether and find an optimal daily use time."
"We found that abandoning smartphones altogether, or reducing their daily use by an hour, had a positive impact on participants' lifestyles and well-being." Julia Brailovskaia said, "In the group with reduced use, these effects lasted even longer and were therefore more stable than in the group that abandoned it altogether."
On average, modern people spend more than three hours a day staring at smartphone screens. We use our mobile phones to look up information, look up maps, look up emails or the weather, shop, read news, watch movies, and chat on social media.
In fact, using a mobile phone before going to bed or even turning off the lights and lying down is a common habit of many young people. However, this unhealthy habit can lead to late sleep, little sleep, poor sleep, and increased tiredness during the day. While sleep plays an important role in emotional cognitive function, sleep deprivation, sleep restriction, and sleep disturbances can negatively affect mood and cognitive function.
Playing with mobile phones is increasing, and everyone's suspicions about its negative effects seem reasonable. Previous related studies have also shown that smartphone use has been linked to problems such as reduced physical activity, obesity, neck pain, impaired performance, and addiction-like behaviors. As Julia Brailovskaia says, "Smartphones are both a blessing and a curse."
And the latest study shows that conscious and controlled changes to the amount of time spent on smartphones each day can promote subjective well-being (reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety, reducing tendencies to use problems, improving life satisfaction) and healthier lifestyles (more physical activity, less smoking behavior).
So in the long run, a reduction in the time spent using a smartphone by 1 hour a day can have this positive effect, and of course, there is no need to reject the phone completely.
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https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fxap0000430https://news.rub.de/english/2022-04-20-psychology-fewer-smartphones-more-well-being