Going on a blind date? Here's a tip: Don't bring your
phone.
The mere presence of a
mobile phone can make the meeting between two strangers more stilted, according
to new research published in the May issue of the Journal of Social and
Personal Relationships.
Cellphones don't disrupt
casual conversation much, the study found, but when people were asked to
discuss something meaningful, they reported less trust, empathy and
lower relationship quality when a cellphone was in the room.
"What the work does
is highlights one potential downside to mobile phones being
so ubiquitous," said study researcher Andrew Przybylski, a psychologist at
the University of Essex. [ The 10 Most
Disruptive Technologies ]
Tech distraction?
Przybylski got the inspiration for the study after
noticing daters and bar-goers in Manhattan leaving
their phones out on the bar or table. He wondered how the phone's presence
might be influencing face-to-face interactions.
"It kind of sends a
message that I could stop talking to you at any moment and start another
conversation," Przybylski told LiveScience.
He and his University of
Essex colleague Netta Weinstein designed two simple experiments in which two
strangers were told to talk for 10 minutes. In the first scenario, 74
undergraduates were paired up and asked to talk about an interesting event in
the last month. Some of them happened to have this conversation in a room with
a mobile phone sitting unobtrusively on a nearby table. For others, the mobile
phone was replaced by a black notebook.
A second experiment used the same setup with 68
students. This time, some of the students were told to have a casual conversation
about how they felt about Christmas trees. Others were asked to discuss the
most meaningful event of the year. Again, some participants had the
conversation in the presence of a cellphone and others did not.
Turn it off
Even though the phone never rang or vibrated, it affected the conversation, Przybylski said.
"When people were
having an important conversation, relationship quality was lower, and partner
trust was lower and empathy was lower when the mobile phone was there," he
said.
The effect was noticeable
even though the participants barely noticed the phone. Surveys given after the
experiment suggested the students had no idea the research involved the phone,
and most had to be prompted to report they'd even seen it.
Przybylski doesn't see the
research as condemning smartphones —
plenty of studies find that technology does connect people, he said,
particularly people who would otherwise fall out of touch due to distance. But
being aware of technology's downsides may help make consumer tech less
of a drag on your social life.
"There are both
positives and negatives to different kinds of tech innovation, and what this
research says is, basically, there are a lot of upsides — and if you're just
mindful of the potential pitfalls, maybe we can build that self-regulatory
capacity to put the phone away," Przybylski said.
"If you actually turn
your phone off — and not make a scene of it, do it in a cool way — it
definitely communicates care and compassion, and that the present moment is
really important."
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