Today, I wanted to focus on three fairly recent and rather interesting studies about the kinds of technology that we deal with in our everyday lives. The first two studies involved the smartphones that we carry with us everywhere we go. The third study involves something else that has become a lot more common in our professional lives - the virtual meeting (something that we probably would have never considered until the COVID-19 pandemic). Virtual meetings have dramatically changed how we work, but again I think the jury is still out on whether or not virtual meetings have made our professional and personal lives better.
Adrian War and colleagues published the first study in 2017 entitled "Brain drain: The mere presence of one's own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity". These investigators conducted two experiments. In experiment #1, they randomly assigned 548 undergraduate students and then asked them to perform a series of cognitive tests. Study participants were asked to place their smartphones in their desk, pocket/bag, or another room. They were all told to place their phones completely on silent mode. The cognitive tests were designed to measure cognitive capacity and fluid intelligence. The study participants randomized to the "desk" condition performed significantly worse, while those randomized to the "other room" condition performed significantly better. In other words, the mere thought of having their smartphone immediately out of reach was enough to shorten their working memory capacity. In experiment #2, they randomly assigned 296 undergraduate students to the same three conditions above, but they added two additional conditions in a 3x2 randomization matrix ("smartphone off" or "smartphone on") - thus, students could be assigned to one of six possible groups. Again, participants in the "desk" condition performed significantly worse (regardless of whether it was turned on or off). In other words, the decrease in performance on the cognitive tests was likely not related to incoming notifications. The investigators concluded that the mere presence of a smartphone in our midst can shorten our attention span and distract us from the task at hand.
The next study is just as disturbing (I recognize that I am perhaps being overly dramatic here). Julia Brailovskaia and colleagues published a study entitled "Finding the 'sweet spot' of smartphone use: Reduction or abstinence to increase well-being and health lifestyle?! An experimental intervention study". These investigators randomized 619 smartphone users in Germany to either complete abstinence from their smartphone for an entire week, reducing daily smartphone use by 1 hour (for just one week), or control (use the smartphone as normal). The study last for four months, and the investigators monitored actual smartphone use and measured life satisfaction, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, physical activity, and smoking behavior at 1 and 4 months into the study. Both interventions reduced smartphone use (as designed), but more importantly life satisfaction and physical activity improved in both groups as well. These effects were sustained at up to 4 months, and of interest, the effect was stronger in the daily reduction group compared to the abstinence group! Both interventions also reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as reducing tobacco use. The investigators concluded that reducing smartphone use leads to more well-being and a healthier lifestyle, though importantly complete abstinence is not required (and is probably not realistic anyway).
The final study involved something that the investigators call, "Zoom Fatigue" ("Nonverbal overload: A theoretical argument for the causes of Zoom Fatigue"). Jeremy Bailenson proposed four reasons (all of which are backed by some evidence) on how virtual meetings (occurring in this case on the Zoom platform) likely lead to adverse psychological consequences:
1. Excessive amounts of close-up eye contact is highly intense. Bailenson claims (correctly, in my opinion) that the amount of eye contact as well as the size of faces on the screens is unnatural. Everyone is looking at everyone, all the time. All listeners are treated nonverbally like a speaker, so even if you are not speaking during a virtual meeting, everyone is still staring at you. Given that the fear of speaking in public is one of the most common phobias today, the excessive amounts of close-up eye contact can cause significant stress.
2. Seeing yourself during video chats constantly in real-time is fatiguing. The "Hollywood Squares" view on Zoom (and other virtual meeting platforms too) includes you, as the user (although you can hide self-view, I believe). It's like having someone follow you around with a mirror constantly, and it can be incredibly taxing and stressful.
3. Video chats dramatically reduce our usual mobility. Even if we are talking to someone at work over the telephone or participating in an audio conference, we can get up and move around. That's generally not possible with virtual meetings, particularly when organizations require that the webcam is always turned on (as many do). While travel time for in-person meetings is no longer necessary for virtual meetings, at least we were able to get the blood moving and stretch our legs throughout the day. Bailenson suggests that there is evidence to suggest that when people are moving, they're actually performing better cognitively.
4. The cognitive load is much higher in video chats. Again, nonverbal communication is an important part of communication. And it's a lot easier to pick up cues, gestures, and signals in-person versus during a virtual meeting. As a result, as Bailenson suggest, you simply have to work harder on nonverbal communication during virtual meetings.
One final point that I think is relevant to this discussion. In my own anecdotal experience (shared by a number of my colleagues and reported elsewhere in the lay press), the number of back-to-back meetings that I am required to attend has significantly increased since we have started using virtual meetings with greater frequency. Again, my comment around travel time between meetings above is an important one. Researchers at Microsoft;s Human Factors Lab measured brain wave activity (using EEG) in fourteen employees while they took part in virtual meetings over the course of two different sessions. In the first session, they attended stretches of four half-hour meetings back-to-back, while in the next session these meetings were separated by 10-minute breaks. You can see the results below (this figure has made its way around social media):
As you can certainly appreciate, attending back-to-back meetings without a break significantly increased stress levels! The investigators at Microsoft concluded that taking a break between meetings allows your brain to "reset", which will reduce the cumulative build-up of stress across meetings. Additional results suggested that back-to-back meetings decrease our ability to focus and engage, and that by taking breaks between meetings, even if short ones, we are beter able to perform.
So, what should we conclude from these studies in aggregate? I would say that we should:
1. Take a break from our smartphones every once in a while (remember, taking a break for as little as one hour per day over the course of one week had significant benefits on health and wellbeing up to four months later)
2. Schedule 10-minute breaks between virtual meetings
3. Continue to provide virtual meeting options, but definitely consider how we can decrease the stressful nature of large virtual meetings in particular
Technology is here to stay. And it will continue to have significant benefits on our quality of life. However, we need to pay close attention on how we implement technology so that we can minimize the adverse effects of technology in our lives, which have been shown to exist as well.
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