Smartphone: Declining productivity – increasing health risks

Many people can no longer imagine everyday life without a smartphone. According to a study by the University of Bonn, people interrupt their work every 18 minutes or so to reach for their smartphone. And that up to 53 times a day!

Smartphones make you addicted, unproductive and unhappy: that is the conclusion of Alexander Markowetz, researcher at the University of Bonn. The junior professor of computer science used an app to analyze the cell phone usage of 60,000 people. In his book “Digitaler Burnout”, published by Droemer Knaur, the researcher explains the connections and describes the dramatic consequences for our private lives and the world of work. Around 300,000 people have now downloaded the “Menthal” app, which was developed last year by computer scientists and psychologists at the University of Bonn for research purposes. The app records smartphone usage and transmits the data anonymously to the researchers’ servers.

Every 18 minutes

The 60,000 data records that have been analyzed so far paint a frightening picture: On average, owners activated their cell phones 53 times a day. They interrupt their current activity every 18 minutes. “Smartphone apps work like slot machines. We use them again and again to get a little kick,” says Alexander Markowetz, Junior Professor of Computer Science at the University of Bonn and author of the book “Digitaler Burnout”, which was published in October 2015.

Corporations react with inappropriate measures

This behavior is not exclusive to young people, but is common to all age groups and social classes. “We are witnessing the emergence of Homo Digitalis, who carries out the majority of his activities using digital media,” says Markowetz. “People spend a lot of their time on social media applications such as Facebook, WhatsApp and games.” The constant interruptions are particularly dramatic. They never allowed them to devote themselves fully to one activity and thus prevented any experience of a flow of work and thought. The consequences are unproductivity and a lack of happiness. Young people in particular are extremely fixated on their cell phones. The 17 to 25-year-old participants in the study used their smartphones even more frequently: a total of three hours a day. And this despite the fact that most of their time is already taken up by school or training.

“Immense loss of productivity”

The economy has also not yet recognized what is coming. “Many companies are currently reacting with unsuitable measures,” says Markowetz. Many companies are following the spirit of the times, equipping their employees with tablets and smartphones and giving them complete flexibility – thus increasing dependency and the risk of burnout. The loss of productivity is immense and the wave of illness will cost them dearly. Other companies would prevent work-related smartphone use in the evening – for example by switching off email servers. However, according to the researcher from the University of Bonn, this misses the real problem. “The constant interruptions in the working day are crucial, rather than the evening email.”

Guidelines for meetings

They are also a common sight in companies: Meeting participants who prefer to stare at their smartphones instead of following the conversation. According to a study by the Marshall School of Business in California, many employees feel impaired by the smartphone use of other meeting participants. It is a sign of a lack of respect and attention, according to the respondents. For this reason, according to a report by 20 Minuten, Swiss companies are increasingly issuing guidelines on what is taboo when it comes to smartphones during meetings.

Surprising results from Brazil

However, the side effects of mobile communications are not limited to a drop in productivity or a dumbing down of society, but also pose high health risks. Current studies such as those by A.C. Dode et al. (see also report on everyday-feng-shui.de) show rather frightening, if not really surprising results. As part of a ten-year long-term study, the Brazilian scientists were able to show that people living within a radius of 500 meters of a mobile phone mast develop neoplasms (tumors) at an above-average rate and also die from these diseases.

Generate a harmonic oscillation field

The law of resonance states that no resonances can occur in an oscillating field with oscillations whose frequencies lie outside those of the field. In other words: In a harmonic oscillation field, artificial radiation has no effect, regardless of who generates it, whether it comes from a neighbor or a nearby mobile phone mast. The mobile products from Swiss Harmony (BioRing, BodyCard, BioBracelet and the BioPatch) harmonize the human body by transmitting the harmonic vibration as information to the human energy system. This means that artificially created radiation fields can no longer resonate.

Swiss Harmony: Protection against harmful radiation

Products from Swiss Harmony for harmonizing houses and apartments ensure that the electricity that supplies a building with electricity receives a different message. They transmit the information of the visible light spectrum to the passing current via the resonance path, which in turn distributes it throughout the entire effective range of the circuit. The electromagnetic field of the apartment or house becomes a harmonious field. In-house WLAN transmitters, cell phones or cordless phones are interference-free because they are connected to the harmonic current field and therefore emit the same harmonic information.