Heavy smartphone usage diminishes experience of daily leisure

A new research has revealed that a high-frequency cell phone user experiences less fun during daily leisure.

3 Researchers from Kent State University surveyed a random sample of 454 college students to examine how different types of cell phone users experience daily leisure.

An analysis revealed three distinct types of cell phone users: low-use extroverts, low-use introverts and a high-use group. The high-use group made up about 25 percent of the sample and averaged more than 10 hours of cell phone use per day.

An increased level of smartphone use was this group's defining characteristic and was associated with a diminished experience of daily leisure.

Researcher Andrew Lepp said that the high-frequency cell phone user may not have the leisure skills necessary to creatively fill their free time with intrinsically rewarding activities and for such people, the ever-present smartphone may provide an easy, but less satisfying and more stressful, means of filling their time.

In comparison to the other two groups, the high-frequency cell phone users experienced significantly more leisure distress. Leisure distress is feeling uptight, stressed and anxious during free time.

Researcher Jacob Barkley said that in their previously published research, they found that high-frequency cell phone users often described feeling obligated to remain constantly connected to their phones and this obligation was described as stressful, but the present study suggests the stress may be spilling over into their leisure.

By contrast, the low-use extrovert group averaged about three hours of smartphone use per day and had the greatest preference to challenge themselves during leisure time as well as low levels of leisure boredom and distress.

The research is published by the journal Computers in Human Behavior.