In a recent study, our former PhD student, Matthew Leitao, complied the findings from 8 different studies in a mini mega-analysis to determine whether the effects of smartphones on well-being and social connectedness depend on the situation and individual differences. Leitao, alongside Dr. Kushlev and Dr. Proulx, found that smartphones significantly undermine people’s feelings of social connectedness across situations, but their impact on well-being does depend on the situation. When smartphones are used during ongoing social interactions, they have shown to negatively impact well-being. Yet, smartphones have not shown to have the same negative impact on well-being when they’re used to find information relevant to current goals. They also found individual differences in the effects of smartphones on well-being, primarily that smartphones negatively impacted men more than women.
These exciting research findings have recently been released for publication and will appear on Open APA in the coming weeks! To get the full read, please follow this link: c7mtgukaifx7xnmptte20rvp1s2d (owlstown.com)