Smartphones have given us the ability to keep connected – whether it’s checking your email, surfing the web, texting, Facebook or Tweeting. But all this connectedness with the constant bings, beeps and vibrations is also apparently causing an increase of stress. A new research report from the University of Worcester states that those who use a smartphone are more stressed than those who don’t. 100 volunteers participated in the survey who first received a smartphone for solely work purposes, gradually found themselves checking/rechecking for new notifications after work hours. Sometimes these users even heard “phantom” vibrations which they thought were new messages, but actually weren’t.
Researcher Richard Balding said that “Smart phone use is increasing at a rapid rate and we are likely to see an associated increase in stress from social networking. Organisations will not flourish if their employees are stressed, irrespective of the source of stress, so it is in their interest to encourage their employees to switch their phones off; cut the number of work emails sent out of hours, and reduce people’s temptation to check their devices.”
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