Smartphone use undermines enjoyment of face-to-face social interactions

By R. Dwyer, Kostadin Kushlev, Elizabeth W. Dunn. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2017

277 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Using a field experiment and experience sampling, we found the first evidence that phone use may undermine the enjoyment people derive from real world social interactions. In Study 1, we recruited over 300 community members and students to share a meal at a restaurant with friends or family. Participants were randomly assigned to keep their phones on the table or to put their phones away during the meal. When phones were present (vs. absent), participants felt more distracted, which reduced how much they enjoyed spending time with their friends/family. We found consistent results using experience sampling in Study 2; during in-person interactions, participants felt more distracted and reported lower enjoyment if they used their phones than if they did not. This research suggests that despite their ability to connect us to others across the globe, phones may undermine the benefits we derive from interacting with those across the table.

Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Literature and Literary Theory, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d66bfa1a47003c394e6604f664b6a4ccf0f6308b

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Citations in the corpus

Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population-based study (2018, background): “Smartphones may also be used during face-to-face social interactions, which may negatively impact those interactions and blunt their usually positive impact on well-being (Dwyer et al., 2018).”
Addictive Features of Social Media/Messenger Platforms and Freemium Games against the Background of Psychological and Economic Theories (2019, background): “Beyond the mentioned issues, (excessive use of) smartphones is known to impact on social communication in terms of reducing smiles when interacting with strangers [13], enjoyment of face-to-face interaction [14] or drawing parent’s attention away from their children [15].”