‘Cellphones reduce trust, hit quality of relationships’

Cellphones reduce trust, hit quality of relationships’

New York: The mere presence of a cellphone can affect your conversation with people even if it never rings or vibrates, a new study has found.
    Mobile phones don’t disrupt casual conversation much but when people were asked to discuss something meaningful, they reported less trust, empathy and lower relationship quality when a cellphone was in the room, the study has found. Andrew Przybylski, a psychologist at the University of Essex, designed two experiments in which two strangers were told to talk for 10 minutes.
    In the first scenario, 74 undergraduates were paired up and asked to talk about an interesting event. Some of them happened to have this conversation with a cellphone in the room and others did not. 
    In the second experiment, some of the students were told to have a conversation about Christmas trees. Others were asked to discuss the most meaningful event of the year. Again, some had the conversation in the presence of a cellphone and others did not. “When people were having an important conversation, relationship quality, partner trust empathy was lower when the mobile phone was there,” Przybylski said. PTI