Did smartphones enhance or diminish well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Name
fpsyg-14-1094196.pdf
Size
845.85 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
3ac143187ef650827376748bc34f602f
Author(s)
Heyman, Jennifer L.
Kushlev, Kostadin
Date Issued
March 13, 2023
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Citation
Heyman, Jennifer L. and Kushlev, Kostadin. 2023. "Did smartphones enhance or diminish well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic?." 14.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
IntroductionAs smartphones have become increasingly integrated into people’s lives, researchers have attempted to answer whether they are beneficial or detrimental to well-being. Of particular interest to the current study is the role that smartphones played during the first year of the COVID-19 Pandemic.MethodsIn an intensive longitudinal study, we explore how varying uses of smartphones relate to well-being using the Displacement-Interference-Complementarity framework.ResultsConsistent with pre-pandemic research, we show that people felt better, calmer, and more energetic when they used their phones more for complementary purposes (i.e., to access information, entertainment, and connection not otherwise available). In contrast to most pre-pandemic research, however, we find no evidence that any type of phone use predicted lower well-being during the pandemic.DiscussionOverall, this study lends support to the idea that smartphones can be beneficial for individuals, particularly during times when face-to-face interaction is limited.
Subjects
General Psychology
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1094196
