If students are placed in a situation where they are required to choose between either being deprived of food, or being deprived of their smartphone, which option will they be most likely to go for? A recent study from the Department of Pediatrics, University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, New York, has attempted, by experiment, to find out . . .
“The results of this study show for the first time that college students find smartphones reinforcing, and that smartphone use is more reinforcing than food. Food deprivation increases food reinforcement, and yet despite not having eaten for at least three hours, and not using a smartphone for two hours, individuals were still more motivated to work towards gaining portions of smartphone use than food, and were willing to spend a greater amount of hypothetical money on portions of smartphone use over food.“
See: ‘Smartphones are more reinforcing than food for students’ by Sara O’Donnell and Leonard H. Epstein, which is scheduled to appear in the journal Addictive Behaviors.
[ Research research by Martin Gardiner ]