Cautions on Mobile Phone Effects

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My article on February 20th 2012 from an old Media & Tech blog

I just saw this on my Twitter Timeline.  The article Do Cell Phones Make Us Less Socially Minded? by Medical News Today reported on a scientific paper on The Effect of Mobile Phone Use on Prosocial Behavior.  This research is being conducted by two marketing professors and a graduate student at the University of Maryland. They caution that it’s a work in progress, and their paper isn’t ready for peer-reviewed publication, yet.

I don’t know if they themselves announced it, but apparently someone else did, purposefully or inadvertently, as the paper is now running the rounds online. A simple Google search shows several links referencing it, proof that it has indeed been published!

Much as I believe in the power of science to illuminate aspects of ourselves, our lives, and our world, I am also cautious in the face of its limitations. Moreover, I shudder at the thought of others misusing its findings or jumping to wrong, unintended conclusions. The creation of the atomic bomb, which drew on the Theory of Special Relativity and caused horrific catastrophe, haunted Albert Einstein for years.

At best, this paper should provoke our thinking, and encourage us to reflect on what we do and how we relate to each other, in this media and technology-dominated world of ours.

So does using the ubiquitous mobile phone in fact make us less inclined to think about others and do good for them?

At first blush, this paper says that, as the Diamondback Online reported. Participants were less likely to volunteer for community service, or engage in problem solving that could lead to a charitable donation. Rosellina Ferraro was one of the research professors, and hear her offer some cautious musing; a university student chimes in as well:

According to Ferraro, the results of the study could lend a bit more credence to the popular opinion that while technology is beneficial, it may have some downsides, too.

“At this point I’m a little hesitant to say what the big-picture implications are,” Ferraro said. “But it’s just something that I think it’s important to be aware of.”

Students were not too surprised with the results, either. Ali Pastor, a sophomore neurobiology major, bought her iPhone just a few months ago and now views it as both a blessing and a curse.

“I think it’s more of like how society’s become nowadays,” she said. “I think people are so hooked on technology that they forget there are problems in the world that need to be fixed.”

My own musings 

What if researchers, or more importantly charity organizations, were to reach out to us directly via the particular media and technology channels that we frequent? In this way, would mobile phone use increase, decrease, or have no significant effect on prosocial behavior?

We know, moreover, that what our friends like is more influential on our buying behavior than what traditional sales ads try to do. So what if it’s a friend encouraging us, on a mobile conversation, to join a Habitat-for-Humanity activity?

You see, we don’t have definitive or generalizable answers for these questions, yet. But the very fact that I, or anyone else for that matter, can ask these question reinforces the caution about arriving at simplistic, potentially wrong conclusions on the effects of mobile phone use!

Here’s another personal account Study: Cell phones make people selfish in The Mommy Files of the San Francisco Chronicle:

The other weekend my husband and I found ourselves in an unusual situation without the kids for a couple hours. We both needed to work but squeezed in a walk to spend some quality alone time together.

About five minutes into our stroll, his iPhone beeped. He pulled out his phone and responded to the text… and then he sent another text and another and another. Fifteen minutes later he was still fully absorbed in his phone - and acting as if I didn’t even exist.

I was annoyed and told him. He made me feel like a nag for complaining. The texts were related to work, he told me.

“Can’t you give me 30 minutes of your time on a Saturday afternoon?” I said.

And then his phone beeped again…

That’s when I should have asked, “Are you interested in volunteering at the kids’ school this weekend?”

The Maryland study indicates that he probably would have said no.

Different people are going to have all kinds of reactions to this little story. But I imagine that besides being connected on, and unwittingly absorbed with, his iPhone, he was helpful, maybe even charitably so, to whomever on his mobile. No question, however, he was flatly disconnected with, even dismissing of, his wife. So I imagine, too, that charitable was absolutely the last word she would have used to describe her husband on that fateful stroll.

Therein lies the rub. Does media and technology benefit us or hurt us? Does it connect us or disconnect us? Does it make us more likely or less likely to help others? Probably the answer is both!

For me, that’s the beauty and the complexity of media and technology.