Women wait twice as long to touch their phones but men don't even last a minute. An experiment conducted on behalf of Kaspersky Lab by the Universities of Würzburg and Nottingham-Trent found that participants left in a waiting room on their own lasted an average of just 44 seconds before touching their smartphones.
Men couldn’t even manage half of this time, waiting an average of only 21 seconds compared to women at 57 seconds.
To delve deeper into our companionship on digital devices, after ten minutes participants were asked how long they thought it had been before they reached for their phone. Most said between two and three minutes, highlighting a significant disconnect between perception and actual behaviour.
Commenting on the findings, Jens Binder from the University of Nottingham Trent said: “The experiment suggests that people are far more attached to these devices than they realise and it has become second nature to turn to our smartphones when left alone with them. We do not just wait anymore. The immediacy of information and interactions delivered through our smart devices make them much more of a digital companion and connection to the outside world than a piece of technology.”
Additional research conducted by the universities suggests that this compulsion to check our phones could be as a result of fear of missing out (FOMO) on something when not online. In an accompanying survey, participants that used their phones more intensely admitted to a higher level of FOMO.
The study also found that the more we use our phones, the more stressed we become. But surprisingly, when participants were asked about their overall happiness there was no difference between light and heavy users. So the stress caused by smartphone usage does not seem to have a major influence on our well-being in general.
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