You've probably been with someone who ignored you while interacting with his or her smartphone. And you've probably engaged in this behavior yourself. In a recent survey, nine out of ten respondents said they'd used their smartphone during their most recent social activity. There's also evidence that this behavior is socially harmful. It can leave people less satisfied with their face-to-face interactions. And it can generate feelings of resentment and jealousy. Now, the Journal of Applied Social Psychology has published a new study exploring the reasons for these effects.
The study included 128 mostly female student participants. The participants watched a three-minute animation in which two cartoon figures interacted and engaged in a conversation. The conversation couldn't be heard but could be detected through mouth movements. Participants had to imagine themselves as the closest figure in the video and then make judgments about the conversations and how they felt about their conversation partners.
In one version of the experiment, the phone of the participants' conversation partner remained unused on the table throughout the conversation. In another version, their partner's attention was quickly drawn to something on their phone and they spent the rest of the time interacting with their phone. A third version involved the participants' partner alternating between periods of interaction with their phone and periods where they ignored their phone. If you've experienced a similar situation, you probably won't be surprised by the results of the experiments.
The participants had a negative view of phone use during social interactions. The more it was present, the worse they considered both the quality of the interaction and the quality of the relationship.
The researchers believed that focusing on one's phone instead of the person one is with has this effect because it's seen as a form of social exclusion. They assert that the behavior is analogous to when people have no choice but to eat alone in the school cafeteria. The twist is that this exclusion occurs while sharing a physical encounter and having a conversation. Researchers found that the behavior had adverse effects on participants' sense of belonging, need for meaning and self-esteem.
These negative effects are similar to those caused by traditional forms of social exclusion. The new findings are important because they elaborate our understanding of a subtle but common aspect of our daily experience. This common behavior can create vicious cycles of detachment even as we try to connect with others.