{"id":23737,"date":"2016-08-30T13:41:05","date_gmt":"2016-08-30T05:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/?p=23737"},"modified":"2016-08-30T13:41:28","modified_gmt":"2016-08-30T05:41:28","slug":"study-shows-26-productive-without-smartphone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/2016\/08\/30\/study-shows-26-productive-without-smartphone\/","title":{"rendered":"We are 26% more productive without our smartphone: study"},"content":{"rendered":"

While smartphones help us stay in touch with colleagues, keep on top of our inbox, and complete urgent tasks on the move, they actually make us less productive when we are working at our desks, according to a new psychological experiment by the Universities of W\u00fcrzburg and Nottingham Trent, commissioned by Kaspersky Lab. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The experiment unearthed a correlation between productivity levels and the distance between participants and their smartphone. When their smartphone was taken away, participant performance improved by 26 per cent.<\/p>\n

The experiment tested the behavior of 95 persons between 19 and 56 years of age in laboratories at the universities of W\u00fcrzburg and Nottingham-Trent. Care was taken to balance experimental conditions and gender across laboratory sites.<\/p>\n

Researchers asked participants to perform a concentration test under four different circumstances: with their smartphone in their pocket, at their desk, locked in a drawer and removed from the room completely.<\/p>\n

The results are significant \u2013 test results were lowest when the smartphone was on the desk, but with every additional layer of distance between participants and their smartphones, test performance increased. Overall, test results were 26% higher when phones were removed from the room.<\/p>\n

Contrary to expectations, the absence of the smartphone didn\u2019t make participants nervous.\u00a0 Anxiety levels were consistent across all experiments. However, in general, women were more anxious than their male counterparts, leading researchers to conclude that anxiety levels at work are not affected by smartphones (or the absence of smartphones), but can be impacted by gender.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrevious studies have shown that on the one hand, separation from one\u2019s smartphone has negative emotional effects, such as increased anxiety, but, on the other hand, studies have also demonstrated that one\u2019s smartphone may act as an distractor when present. In other words, both the absence and presence of a smartphone could impair concentration,\u201d says Jens Binder from the University of Nottingham Trent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn summary, our findings from this study indicate that it is the absence, rather than the presence, of a smartphone that improves concentration,\u201d adds Astrid Carolus from the University of W\u00fcrzburg.<\/p>\n

The results of the experiment correlate with the findings of an earlier survey \u2013 named \u201cDigital Amnesia at Work.\u201d In this survey, Kaspersky Lab demonstrated that digital devices can have a negative impact on concentration levels. It showed, for example, that typing notes into digital devices during meetings lowers the level of understanding of what is actually happening in the meeting.<\/p>\n

While banning digital devices from the workplace is not really an option, these findings \u2013 combined with those of \u201cDigital Amnesia at Work<\/a>\u201d \u2013 give businesses an insight on how to improve their productivity.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of expecting permanent access to their smartphones, employee productivity might be boosted if they have dedicated \u2018smartphone-free\u2019 time. One way of doing this is to enforce \u2018meeting rules\u2019 \u2013 such as no phones, and no computers \u2013 in the normal work environment,\u201d says Sylvia Ng, General Manager at Kaspersky Lab Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n

\u201cBusinesses should also be aware that in today\u2019s connected business landscape, lower concentration levels can be a security issue. Advanced targeted attacks, for example, can only be discovered if employees are alert and on the look-out for unexpected and unusual email content. It is therefore vital that businesses develop security processes, including training sessions, to increase employee alertness, whether employees are using their smartphones at work, or not,\u201d adds Ng.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While smartphones help us stay in touch with colleagues, keep on top of our inbox, and complete urgent tasks on the move, they actually make us less productive when we are working at our desks, according to a new psychological experiment by the Universities of W\u00fcrzburg and Nottingham Trent, commissioned by Kaspersky Lab. \u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":23738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,2,22],"tags":[2464,117,326],"class_list":["post-23737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-mobile-products","category-spotlight","tag-employee-productivity","tag-kaspersky-lab","tag-smartphones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}