According to an experiment carried out on behalf of Kaspersky Lab by the Universities of Würzburg and Nottingham Trent, men find it more difficult to stay away from their phones for a longer period as compared to women. The study revealed that participants left in a waiting room lasted an average of hardly 44 seconds before touching their phones. Men were found waiting for only 21 seconds without touching their phones whereas women performed comparatively better at 57 seconds.
Men find it more difficult to stay away from phones
David Emm, Senior Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab, said:
“Smartphones are an integral part of our lives today, but we need to remember that they are a commodity that people often take for granted. Having them around all the time often makes us forget how valuable they actually are because of the personal memories and other data they hold. These are not only valuable and precious to us, but also to criminals. If our personal information was to become compromised in any way, either from theft or a malware attack, we would risk losing our connection to friends and sources of information.”
After ten minutes of the experiment, participants were asked how long they thought it had been before they failed to refrain from touching their phones. Interestingly, many of them simply answered between two and three minutes. As a result, the study also revealed a significant disconnection between what participants perceived and how they behaved in reality.
Another research carried out by universities showed that the addiction of smartphones could be a part of FOMO (fear of missing out) when not online. The study also indicated that excessive use of smartphone correlates with more stressful situations that one could ever imagine, and is known to cause several health problems.
Fortunately, the stress triggered by excessive use of smartphone doesn’t seem to affect our well-being as participants belonging to different usage patterns could not be differentiated upon asking about their level of happiness.
