Are you a smartphone addict? New research from a study called iPosture: The Size of Electronic Consumer Devices Affects Our Behavior claims that people who spend a lot of time working on small devices such as smartphones are less assertive than people who primarily work on desktop PCs and notebooks.
The study took note of the body language, particularly posture, that people adopt as they interact with a digital device. By and large, peoples’ body language became less dominant and assertive when they interacted with a small device – an iPhone, iPad, or Kindle, for example – than when they used a large digital computer.
Maarten Bos, one of several Harvard researchers involved in the study, claims that the results were indicative of a change in body chemistry that can occur when users interact with smartphones. ‘Power poses,’ which are often adopted when people use large devices, can affect the body’s chemical composition for several minutes.
Researchers found that when people position themselves in ‘power poses’ – poses in which the body was spread out to use a maximal amount of space – their total levels of testosterone increased temporarily, leading to increased confidence and a greater desire to take risks in their work.
Smartphones, on the other hand, encouraged users to take on contractive postures that involved folding the arms and slumping their upper body forward. The results of contractive postures are the opposite to those of power poses – a large increase in cortisol levels, and a reduction in testosterone levels.
Experian Marketing Services reports that the average American phone user spends a total of 58 minutes per day interacting with their device. Over 73 percent of their ‘phone time’ is spent on non-call activities such as sending text messages, checking email, and surfing the Internet.
