People use their mobile phone for many different things, such as to relieve boredom or reduce stress between breaks at work. But is it really good for anything?
A team of researchers from the Institute of Behavioral Sciences at Radboud University in the Netherlands has found that workers who use their smartphones to take short breaks do not reduce boredom or fatigue , they have published in the Royal Society Open journal. Science .
It can make things worse
To find out, the researchers enlisted the help of 83 candidates at Radboud University to become a doctor. Each was asked to report their level of boredom and fatigue every hour while working. Each also had a smartphone app that logged their usage .
By comparing phone use to self-reported levels of boredom and fatigue, the researchers were able to track volunteers’ use of their phones to deal with boredom or fatigue.
They found that using their phones not only did not alleviate boredom or fatigue, but in many cases made things worse . They also noted that volunteers who described themselves are more bored or more fatigued than others in the study – they did not take longer breaks with their smartphones than those who felt less bored or fatigued.