According to new study individuals who didn’t use cell phones in the bedroom for seven days felt an improvement in their overall wellbeing.
A group of 95 people was put to the test. 49 people had not to use cell phones before going to bed. And 46 participants followed their usual way of life or in other words kept using cell phones.
The study was authored by Nicola Hughes of the University of East London. He said that before buying an iPhone he had a blackberry that he seldom connected to the internet. He explained that he would only use it for making calls, texting and checking emails once in a while.
After that, he bought an iPhone and things changed completely. Nicola Hughes had 4 G and programs like Whatsapp and Instagram available all the time. Before long, his cell phone had become an inseparable part of his life. It not only provided him the opportunity to interact with his friends and family all the time but became a permanent source of information that requires attention.
The scientist got the idea for the study after reading an article about a lady who charged her cell at night. The point was to keep her bedroom a
“sanctuary” from the technological invasion. So he wanted to see the result after more people rid of their cell phones in the bedroom. This way they’d have more time for other activities they could perform offline.
As mentioned above he made 49 of the participants leave their cell phones for the night during a week.
The bigger part of the people who stopped using mobiles in the bedroom said they would continue to do so.
The reason was that their overall wellbeing during the week got a slight improvement. They also scored better at a test measuring their mobile phone addiction.
Hughes says that it would be interesting to find out what’s the effect of restricting phone usage during other times of the day. And whether this will have a more positive effect on those who used a cell phone too often. According to him, it is important to make an empirical investigation of the influence of technology on the quality of sleep and personal relationships.
Hughes says the research in this direction should serve to know better the negative consequences of using technology and how they could be avoided.
The good news is that the participants in the study confessed that restricting themselves from using cell phones in the bedroom resulted in:
- better sleep
- reduced anxiety
- better relationships
- not wasting time
However these results need to be scientifically measured.
Another interesting fact is that most of the people actually feared taking part in such research. Hughes says there were obvious worries that they will be deprived of the possibility to use their cell phone whenever they wanted.
Participants wanted to know how long exactly they’ll be without cell phones. At first, Hughes thought to conduct the experiment for 2 weeks. However, he finally dropped it down to one. He feared he wouldn’t be able to find enough participants willing to live without their cell phone for a longer period.
Eventually, he says that although the research results are not
empirically quantifiable he learned a lot about the enormous influence that cell phones have on our lives.