People who scroll on their phone while watching a film warned by experts

People who can’t help scrolling while watching a film are being warned by experts.

For many of us, our phones are by our sides most of the day. Even when you pick a film to watch and settle in on the sofa, you may put your phone on the side and forget it’s even there, if only for a little while.

Then the film has a quiet moment or your LED display lights up because of a notification and suddenly you’re aware you have a phone and you haven’t checked in on what’s happening in the virtual world for a while.

A study from 2019 titled, ‘Do You Enjoy TV, while Tweeting?’ looked into the effects of media multitasking by examining the impact of the use of a second screen while watching a programme.

The findings concluded that scrolling while you’re watching the TV decreases people’s experience of transportation, which then impairs their emotional responses; reduced emotions further decrease enjoyment of the show.

However, the worst part is how experts describe the effects this kind of multitasking can have on your brain.

Scientists who undertook the study with marketing agency HeyHuman claim that every time a person switches between gadgets, it releases a chemical called L-dopa, which produces the hormone dopamine.

Raised levels of this hormone are associated with drug abuse with the scientists saying it’s ‘worse than being stoned’.

They said the continued use of technology in this way could be rewiring our brains and lowering our IQ level as a result. 

“Our brains could, thanks to our reliance and overuse of technology, be heading for the scrap heap,” they added.

So what is excessive screen time? How much time is too much time spent scrolling on your smartphone?

Michael Rich, a Center on Media and Child Health director at Boston Children’s Hospital, says it doesn’t necessarily matter ‘how long we’re using our screens’, but more so how our brain interacts with it.

He explained: “Virtually all games and social media work on what’s called a variable reward system, which is exactly what you get when you go to Mohegan Sun and pull a lever on a slot machine.”

“It balances the hope that you’re going to make it big with a little bit of frustration, and unlike the slot machine, a sense of skill needed to improve,” he said.

Mr Rich added that while we can ‘evolve with the technology’, what really matters is how we choose to use it.

He added: “We don’t want to be in a moral panic because the kids are staring at smartphones.

“We need to be asking, what’s happening when they’re staring at their smartphone in terms of their cognitive, social and emotional development?

“As with most things, it will probably be a mix of positive and negative. Going forward with our eyes open, how can we enhance the positive and mitigate the negative?”

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