Dubai: While smartphones help us stay in touch with others and complete urgent tasks on the move, they actually make us less productive when we are working at our desks, according to a new psychological experiment by the Universities of Würzburg and Nottingham Trent, commissioned by Kaspersky Lab.
The experiment unearthed a correlation between productivity levels and the distance between participants and their smartphones. When their smartphone was taken away, participant performance improved by 26 per cent.
Researchers asked participants to perform a concentration test under four different circumstances: with their smartphone in their pocket, at their desk, locked in a drawer and removed from the room completely. Results were lowest when the smartphone was on the desk, but with every additional layer of distance between participants and their smartphones, test performance increased. Overall, test results were 26 per cent higher when phones were removed from the room.
Contrary to expectations, the absence of the smartphone didn’t make participants nervous. Anxiety levels were consistent across all experiments. However, in general, women were more anxious than their male counterparts, leading researchers to conclude that anxiety levels at work are not affected by smartphones (or the absence of smartphones), but can be impacted by gender.
The results of the experiment correlate with the findings of an earlier survey named “Digital Amnesia at Work.” In this survey, Kaspersky Lab demonstrated that digital devices can have a negative impact on concentration levels. It showed, for example, that typing notes into digital devices during meetings lowers the level of understanding of what is actually happening in the meeting.
While banning digital devices from the workplace is not really an option, these findings give businesses an insight on how to improve their productivity.
We should also be aware that in today’s connected business landscape, lower concentration levels can be a security issue. Advanced targeted attacks, for example, can only be discovered if employees are alert and on the lookout for unexpected and unusual email content. It is therefore vital that businesses develop security processes, including training sessions, to increase employee alertness, whether employees are using their smartphones at work or not.
The author is consumer sales director, Kaspersky Lab Middle East
