A new study shows the potential negative impacts of using smartphones.
Researchers from Canada’s University of Waterloo have found smartphone gaming to escape boredom and a negative mood can be harmful. They say “escape players” — those who have a hard time interacting with the real world and maintaining attention — may seek “flow.” “Flow” is a deep and effortless state of concentration in an activity associated with losing awareness of space and time.
“We found that people who experience intense boredom frequently in everyday life reported playing smartphone games to escape or alleviate these feelings of boredom,” Chanel Larche, study lead author and a Ph.D. candidate in cognitive neuroscience at Waterloo, said in a press release. “The problem with this boredom ‘fix’ is that they end up playing whenever they are bored, and end up experiencing problems tied to excessive gameplay.
“During gameplay, players may achieve optimal arousal, engaged focus and attention and a reduction in feelings of monotony, but this heightened urge-to-play among escape players can have negative consequences and lead to excessive time gaming.”
Larche and Michael Dixon, the school’s cognitive neuroscience professor, used the game Candy Crush in the study. Sixty participants between levels 77 and 3307 played at various difficulty levels. Too easy meant a lack of skill-challenge balance, low flow and low arousal. Balanced offered more challenge and greater flow, arousal, less boredom and a stronger urge to continue playing. The varied levels determined whether players would choose to keep playing a game with a balance of challenge and skill conducive to flow instead of an easier game that would cause less flow.
Results showed that players who play smartphone games such as Candy Crush to escape boredom become more immersed in gameplay than nonescape players. But when escape players find the games more rewarding as a relief from boredom, they may play longer and more often.
“Those who play to escape experience greater flow and positive effect than other players, which sets up a cycle of playing video games to elevate a depressed mood,” Dixon said. “This is maladaptive because, although it elevates your mood, it also increases your urge to keep playing. Playing too long may lead to addiction and means less time is available for other healthier pursuits. This can actually increase your depression.”
When you do feel bored, another study points to having a good mindset to fight it.
In 2019, Washington State University researchers found that it’s possible to have a positive response to boredom.
“Now we want to find out the best tools we can give people to cope positively with being bored,” Sammy Perone, an assistant professor at Washington State University in Pullman told Medical News Today.
“Doing things that keep you engaged rather than focusing on how bored you are is really helpful,” he said.
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