Hasta La Gadget!

Jun 24

Smartphone use may make you wussy, says Harvard study

Do you hunch when you work on your smartphone?

(Credit: Apple)

Your reputation as a tough, hard-nosed business go-getter may take a hit if you spend a lot of time using your little smartphone. A study conducted by researchers at Harvard Business School suggests that using devices with small screens can cause people to behave less assertively than those using larger screens.

“Grounded in research showing that adopting expansive body postures increases psychological power, we hypothesized that working on larger devices, which forces people to physically expand, causes users to behave more assertively,” reads the abstract of the paper, titled “iPosture: The Size of Electronic Consumer Devices Affects Our Behavior.”

The study used 75 participants who were randomly assigned to perform tasks on various devices. The researchers chose to go with Apple products representing a range of sizes, though the results could be extrapolated to other brands. Participants used an iPod Touch, an iPad, a MacBook Pro, or an iMac.

Once the tasks were finished, the researcher told the participant, “I will be back in five minutes to debrief you, and then pay you so that you can leave. If I am not here, please come get me at the front desk.” The researcher then waited up … [Read more]