(STUDY FINDS) — ANN ARBOR, Mich — Tens of millions of people get their news from a smartphone every day, and it’s easy to see why. We no longer have to wait for the nightly local news broadcast to catch up on the latest stories; everything happening in the world is available at our fingertips at any given moment. At first consideration, it’s hard to see a downside to getting your daily dose of news via smartphone, but a new study has found that viewing news on small screens leads to reduced attentiveness and engagement.
Researchers from the University of Michigan and Texas A&M University discovered that study participants viewing video news stories on smaller, smartphone-sized screens exhibited less heart rate variability and a decrease in perspiration fluctuation compared to individuals watching news on larger screens. Both of these observations indicate that people aren’t as attentive to news presented on small screens.
