“We’re really bad at estimating about time we spend doing things, particularly around tech use,” said Etchells, a professor of psychology and science communication at Bath Spa University.<\/p>\n
He told the BBC studies had shown self-reported statistics around phone use and screen time were often exaggerated when compared to objective measurements – meaning it could create an “inflated correlation” if drawn to someone’s health.<\/p>\n
But Etchells said despite his wariness about this, the Age of Autopilot report is useful in suggesting people may be growing more aware of their phone habits.<\/p>\n
“Being able to notice when you’re using it when you don’t want to or need to is a really important first step,” he said.<\/p>\n
Key to understanding the impact of screen time is knowing it does not always “equal bad” but rather, identifying where it can lead to unwanted behaviour or dangerous activity, such as checking your phone while driving, Etchells added.<\/p>\n
Netta Weinstein of Reading University said people should avoid becoming too judgmental about their directionless phone use – with scrolling providing relaxtion, distraction, humour or connection for some.<\/p>\n
“But it is worth asking whether it really leaves us feeling restored, or whether we simply emerge later feeling no better, and sometimes worse,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“We’re really bad at estimating about time we spend doing things, particularly around tech use,” said Etchells, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[2306,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-618176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-mobile","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}