The Smartphone Issue
The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone. - Alain de Botton
What I-O Folks Are Reading
Selections from published articles, articles in press, and other academic resources.
Can’t Help Falling in Phub
Phubbing is a funny name for a nasty habit: looking at your phone instead of the person right in front of you. Whether you’re at home or at work, phubbing is almost guaranteed to damage your relationships. So why do we do it? Part of the reason may be a social-media induced fear of missing out (FoMO).
Social Media Induced Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) and Phubbing: Behavioural, Relational and Psychological Outcomes. Technological Forecasting and Social Change.
When the Boss Phubs Employees
Trust in the supervisor drops. Job satisfaction drops. Job performance declines. Boss phubbing: not even once.
Boss Phubbing, Trust, Job Satisfaction and Employee Performance. Personality and Individual Differences.
Smartphone as Binky
When you’re feeling stressed, do you snuggle up the the warming glow of your smartphone screen for reassurance? It kinda works, right? Weirdly enough, it doesn’t work as well if you’re using your laptop or someone else’s phone.
The Smartphone as a Pacifying Technology. Journal of Consumer Research.
What Everyone Else is Reading
Articles, books, and resources from the popular business press.
The Author’s Right, You Know
Sometimes in training and development, the thing learners hate the most is also the most effective. Roleplay, for example. Here’s another:
The smartphone is the single best tool to improve your presentation and public speaking skills. Very few people use a video camera to sharpen their presentation skills. Here's how to get started and what to look for after you hit record.
The Best Public Speaking Tool You're Always Carrying. Inc.
Brick Your Smartphone Addiction
Brick is a gray square, approximately 2 by 2 inches, that pairs with a user’s phone. Users can choose which apps they want to block and which ones they want to keep running, and then tap the Brick to lock the apps they’ve selected. In order to unblock the application, users have to tap the Brick again. The idea is that you would keep your Brick in a separate location from your phone most of the time, thereby making access to all of your locked apps much less convenient.
It’s nice to have things you can count on in this life. As long as the earth revolves around the sun, Fast Company will shoehorn a generational label into a headline, no matter how irrelevant.
Meet the Gen Z Founder Who Wants to Save You From a Life of Smartphone Distraction. Fast Company.
Breaking the New Smartphone Habit
Google wants us to hold on to our phones a bit longer.
Android 14 has two key bullet points to watch out for. The first is Google’s decision to extend the support window to a reported seven years. That’s seven years of Android OS updates and security fixes to keep the devices secure. The latter is one of the critical factors in determining the lifespan of the phone - the hardware could hold out for decades, but without security, there’s little practical use.
How Google's Pixel 8 Pro Will Change Smartphones Forever. Forbes.
Amazon Best Sellers: Business & Money
Links lead to short summaries.
Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson
Atomic Habits, James Clear
Astor, Anderson Cooper & Katherine Howe
Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert T. Kiyosaki
Becoming Coachable, Scott Osman, Jacquelyn Lane, & Marshall Goldsmith
Construct of the Week
A psychological construct relevant to work psychology.
Phubbing: Snubbing someone in a social situation by looking at one’s phone instead of paying attention to the other person.
The Research Quiz
Researchers analyzed 26 studies exploring the relationship between personality and smartphone use disorder. Which of the Big Five personality traits were associated with problematic smartphone use?