Smartphones have become so entrenched in daily life, but researchers say there's good reason to consider cutting back screen time.
People who reduced their smartphone use by just an hour a day felt happier and more motivated at work and employers benefit as well with increased productivity, according to a new study published on Sept. 14 in the journal Acta Psychologica.
Study participants said they felt less depressed and more in control when they made this change, lead researcher Julia Brailovskaia said in a press release.
Brailovskaia works at the German Center for Mental Health and the Mental Health Research and Treatment Center at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany.
“A conscious and controlled reduction of non-work-related screen time, in combination with more physical activity, could improve employees’ work satisfaction and mental health," she said.
It was a small-scale study, including 278 participants from different professions and lasting only one week.
Researchers assigned the participants to four groups of roughly equal size, and looked at the impacts of reducing phone use and increasing exercise.
The smartphone group decreased their private smartphone use by one hour a day for one week. The sport group boosted their daily physical activity by 30 minutes. The combination group did both, while the control group didn’t change their routine.
All participants completed online questionnaires about their well-being related to work and mental health. They did the questionnaires before the study, immediately afterwards and two weeks after it ended.
Self-reported work satisfaction and motivation, work-life balance and mental health "improved significantly" in the smartphone group and the combination group, researchers found.
"What’s more, the feeling of work overload and symptoms of problematic smartphone use were significantly reduced," they said in the press release. "All interventions led to a reduction in depressive symptoms and they increased the participants’ sense of control."
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