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Yet Another Reason To Put. The. Phone. Down.

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Researchers find that your phone really is a measurable distraction from people at meals, making you more bored and less happy.

The smartphone has become so ubiquitous at mealtimes that it might as well have its own seat at the dinner table. But according to new research led by The University of British Columbia, that practice is taking a serious toll. Our "delightful" phones are actually boring us, creating feelings of tension and making us less happy than when we put them down and enjoy the company of family and friends.

The study invited 304 participants to have a meal at a cafe, in groups of three to five. These people were family and friends, rather than strangers. No one knew what was being tested, but half of the groups were told to keep their phones on the table, because they'd be texted questions during the meal. The other half was instructed to silence their phones and put them away. The people who dined with their phones out enjoyed their meal less than those who put them away. They reported being more distracted, more tense, and more bored.

University studies, like this one, are often criticized for being skewed by local demographics since college students make up the vast majority of readily available subjects. In this case, however, researchers were surprised to find that even the most tech-fluent youngsters, actually raised on smartphones, were negatively impacted by the phones' presence.

[Photo: The Creative Exchange/Unsplash]

"This generation has grown up with mobile technology, and some have raised the possibility that young people might, therefore, be relatively adept at multi-tasking in real-world contexts," the researchers write. "This idea is particularly compelling in the context of extended social interactions, such as sharing a meal with friends, given that natural lulls in conversation might afford the ability to attend to one's phone without any detectable cost. Yet, our findings suggest that even the moderate levels of phone use we observed are sufficient to create feelings of distraction that undermine the emotional rewards of social interaction."


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