A recent study showed that participants preferred talking to strangers to using their smartphones, although they did not always prioritize this preference in actual choices. While talking can be an emotional boost, watching videos on a smartphone ranks highly, while being forced to be alone is the least popular activity.
Although people often expect to get more enjoyment out of conversations than from their smartphones, they don't always follow this intuition. People seem to value social interaction over smartphones, but that doesn't mean they'll stop scrolling.
Researchers at the University of Georgia's Franklin College of Arts and Sciences found that participants generally preferred talking to strangers over scrolling on their phones or sitting alone.
"When people are in the real world, they have these choices," said lead author Christina Leckfor, a doctoral student. "We're interested in understanding how people compare their choices, both in terms of how they expect to feel and how they actually feel after doing these things."
To gain insight into these feelings, the researchers divided study participants into four groups. Two groups predicted how they would feel about different actions, and two groups completed the assigned actions. All groups then ranked the options from most pleasant to least pleasant. To measure feelings about the tasks, all four groups rated their likelihood of experiencing positive or negative emotions from the tasks using a scale from 0 to 100.
"We thought that people might underestimate the pleasure of talking to a stranger and overestimate the pleasure of using a smartphone. But we found that was not the case. Across our studies, people were actually more accurate at predicting how they would feel than we thought."
The gap in emotional values was similar between the imagination group and the task completion group. When presented with three options - using a smartphone, sitting alone or talking to a stranger - conversation had the highest positive emotional value in both groups. Using a smartphone ranked second, and sitting alone ranked third.
As you add more options, the results change. In addition to chatting or sitting quietly, after being given specific smartphone tasks (watching videos, scrolling social media, or texting), participants said they most enjoyed watching videos, followed by chatting with strangers, using social media, and then texting. Sitting alone came last again.
Even though talking can boost mood, people still prefer watching videos
A big difference, Lakeford said, comes from the emotions associated with these tasks. While participants said they would prefer to use their smartphones to some extent, their moods were elevated even more after talking to strangers. From a baseline average of 52.2 points out of 100, conversation increased positive mood by about 5 points, to 57.68. In contrast, the positive sentiment for watching videos rose by 2.4 points to 54.62 points, while the positive sentiment for texting dropped to 47.56 points.
"We were surprised that although participants reported an improvement in mood after talking to strangers, they still ranked texting over talking to strangers. This may mean that people are not always aware of the potential benefits of talking, or that they are not prioritizing these messages. It also suggests that simply experiencing the pleasure of something does not always make us want to do it."
Sitting alone is still my least favorite thing
Sitting alone ranked last among all measures, with many believing that sitting alone was least likely to produce positive emotions and most likely to produce negative emotions. This result could indicate that participants preferred activity or escape to being alone, but it could also be a result of the study's forced isolation, Lakeful said.
Each study participant was asked to spend some time alone. They have no choice. Some previous research has shown that when people have choice and the freedom to choose to be alone, they enjoy being alone more than when they are forced to be alone. Lakeford said it's difficult to think about and rank options for free time outside of research, but these results highlight the importance of thinking before picking up your smartphone.
"In the real world, we don't always make these comparisons consciously, even when you have all these options," she said. "But this study explores the idea that if we take the time to consciously think about different activities, maybe we can better understand how we feel about those activities."