While getting outside is a typical recipe for reducing screen time, a new study indicates that being outside doesn’t always reduce smartphone screen time. The new research, which tracked the smartphone activity of 700 study participants for two years, shows that participants’ smartphone activity actually increased during visits to city parks and other urban green spaces. With smartphone use increasing around the world, the study clearly identifies a powerful way to reduce screen time: participants who visited nature reserves or forests saw a significant drop in screen time in the first three hours , as compared to those visiting urban locations for the same amount of time.
Researchers say the study, published in the journal Environment and Behaviour, shows for the first time that young adults now spend far more time on their smartphone screens than in nature. Looking at participants’ unique access to devices, the team found that young adults in the study spent twice as much time on their smartphones as they did outside. “Greentime, or time outside, has long been recommended as a way to restore our attention from the demands of daily life, yet prior to our study, little was known about whether nature makes people mobile. provide a way to disconnect from the devices that now follow us into the great outdoors,” said lead author Kelton Minor, postdoctoral research scientist at Columbia University’s Data Science Institute. “While previous research suggested that short trips to city parks could provide a digital detox, we saw that texting and phone calls actually increased. That helped people get off their screens.” And take their attention away from their smartphones.”
A major advancement of the study is the novelty of the data richness compared to other smartphone studies, where participants typically self-report their smartphone use or environmental behaviors. In this study, participants agreed to share more than 2.5 million privacy-preserving logs of activity from their smartphone data – texts, calls and screen time – for science. Co-author Chris Danforth, a Gundt Fellow at the University of Vermont (UVM), who will co-lead the study, says, “Smartphones have an incredibly powerful pull on our attention, which will undoubtedly increase in the future – that is Which many technology companies are working on.” A new $20M big data project on the science of storytelling. “Given the purported links between mental health and our digital lives, we need more studies like this one to help us establish ways to encourage a healthy relationship with technology.”
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Discussing their findings, the researchers theorize that urban greenspace may be useful in increasing distant social connections – hence the increase in texts and phone calls in urban parks – but also in individuals’ opportunities to harness the attention-restoring properties of nature. can interrupt. The increased use of smartphones has been linked to increased cases of anxiety, depression, and sleep problems, especially among the younger generation. At the same time, research from UVM and others has shown that being in nature has revitalizing benefits for our mind and body that provide a sense of happiness comparable to the Thanksgiving or New Year’s holidays. Researchers believe that visual and sensory experiences of nature help strengthen people’s ability to better focus on life beyond their smartphones.
According to the researchers, this is the first study to compare time spent on smartphone screens with time spent in outdoor green spaces. They found that young adults who most commonly used their smartphones reduced their use the most in nature areas, providing evidence that more wild greentime can provide a digital break for even the most connected. .