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From phone-to-phone to face-to-face a study suggests strike a balance
ByLos Angeles Times, adapted by Newsela staff
Grade Level7
08.27.14
There may be a new reason to look forward to camping trips. A new study of about 50 sixth-graders suggests that their ability to read nonverbal social cues can improve after just five days at a nature camp. None of the campers could use computers, tablets or mobile phones at the camp.
Nonverbal social cues are the emotional information we pick up from people around us that is not communicated through words. It includes facial expressions, eye contact, tone of voice and body posture.
Researchers have wondered if children are losing the ability to read these important cues. More time is spent corresponding with their friends through text messaging rather than talking to them in person.
Yalda Uhls runs the Los Angeles office of the nonprofit Common Sense Media. She is also the lead author of the study, published in the scientific journal Computers in Human Behavior.
Away From Their Electronic Devices
Uhls said the idea for the study came from watching her daughter. “I’ve been at parties where the kids are all hanging out, but instead of looking at each other, they are staring at their phones.”
The researchers wanted to see what would happen if children had to spend an extended period of time without devices.
Uhls and professor Patricia Greenfield found a sixth-grade class that goes to a wilderness camp in Southern California for five days. At the camp, the students cannot use electronics.
When the class of about 50 children arrived at the camp, they took two tests to measure their ability to read nonverbal social cues. In the first, the kids were asked to judge the emotions in 48 photos of people making faces. In the second test, they watched a video with nosoundand then judged the actor's emotions.
At the end of the five-day camp, the kids took the tests again. According to researchers, the kids made an average of 14.02 errors on the face-recognition test at the beginning of their camp stay but only 9.41 errors by the end.
On the video test, they correctly named an average of 26 percent of the emotional states at the beginning of camp. By the end of their five-day stay, the students got 31 percent correct.
Tech Savvy Versus Social Savvy
Uhls said the researchers were surprised to see those results after just five days. She was encouraged by what they showed though. If lack of face-to-face time is changing people's ability to understand emotion, she said, the results suggest that putting devices away for five days is enough time to improve that ability.
The researchers gave the same test to 54 sixth-graders from the same school who had not yet attended the camp. That group, known as a control group, made an average of 12.24 mistakes the first time they took the photo test. Like the group at camp, they made 9.81 mistakes five days later.
For the video test, the students’ scores stayed flat. Students in the control group got an average of 28 percent of the emotions correct both times they were tested.
The end results of the two groups were not that different. The group at camp showed a larger improvement over the five days than the control group.
Uhls said she noticed the similar results. The researchers are focusing on the change the kids showed over time because the groups started at different levels.
Uhls and Greenfield said the results of their study suggest that it is important for kids to spend time away from computer screens and iPads. It does not necessarily suggest that all screen time is bad. They hope people understand it's important that kids have time for face-to-face socializing.
“I love media, my kids are media-savvy, but it is really important to have a balance,” Uhls said.