What Your Smartphone Habits Reveal About Your Personality, According to Science
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When I worked in sales, my manager made a point of instructing our team to always wear good shoes.
“Shoes make the man,” he said. Then, glancing at me, “or, erh, woman.”
He explained that shoes convey a lot about a person. So, to make the best possible first impression we needed shiny, scuff-free, well-cared-for shoes on at all times.
But today, if you want to understand someone, shoes might be a red herring. There’s a much bigger tell-tale, and it’s sitting in your pocket.
Phones: The New Human Limb
Our phones have become intrinsically connected to our identities. According to an analysis by dscout, the average person touches their phone 2,617 times every single day. For most people, it’s never more than a few feet away. It’s part of who we are now.
Although an analysis of someone’s smartphone provides insight into their personal story, it turns out there are elements we can use to predict personality, too. Researchers have been trying to do it for years.
(I’m about to reference the Big 5 Personality traits a fair bit. If you’re unfamiliar with that model, you can check out my quick intro guide to the Big 5 here.)
Spend lots of time calling people? Change your ring tones or wallpaper often? According to one study from 2008, that might reflect your extroversion – perhaps enjoying your phone as a stimulus. (Though I don’t know that changing your ring tone is all that trendy anymore…)
Since this study, smartphones have gotten more sophisticated, and their usage has sky-rocketed. So, scientists kept at it. Which leads us to this:
The Coolest Study I’ve Read All Year
Now, a new paper has been released.
It used machine learning to predict personality traits based on how we use our smartphones – from app usage to day and night time activity, and music.
Some of the cool findings:
Predictors of extroversion included more irregular calls (including night time incoming calls), and a higher number of outgoing calls, as well as more WhatsApp use. Calls were also made to a larger pool of people.
Like your music loud on the weekend? This was a factor predicting a lower level of openness. But if you use your phone camera a lot, and write loads of text messages that vary in length, that’s a positive predictor.
Facets of the personality trait conscientiousness include a sense of duty and love of order. The researchers said for these sub-traits, “a very specific behaviour was found to be important – the mean charge of the phone when it was disconnected from a charging cable.” It seems us conscientious folks cannot deal with low battery, and those with higher love of order were predicted to usually have charges above 60%.
(Compare that to you risk takers throwing caution to the wind and seeing how far 4% can get you... without even switching it onto low battery. Absolute. Thrill-seekers.)
For conscientiousness in general, a positive predictor was that the person generally stops using their phone before midnight. And, in a result that surprises absolutely no one, high conscientiousness also leads to more weather app usage.
This is an awesome paper, because it means you can analyse someone's app usage, music, and camera reel, and learn so much more than how obsessed they are with their dog. (But still, show me your dog-devoted photo albums anytime). Now you can, to an extent, figure out their deeper personalities.
So, using this information, perhaps you can consider your own phone usage and how it reflects your personality. You might even like to make some predictions and then do a free Big 5 Personality test online to check your hypotheses.
Problematic Phone Usage and Accidental Distraction
How we interact with our phones more generally can be linked to personality, too. Research suggests that extroverts keep their phones close and check them more, and it and neuroticism have been linked to a higher susceptibility to smartphone addiction or problematic phone use.
Problematic phone use is something of a concern. Many are addicted to phones. Most of us can’t bear to be without our little computers. We even have a term for that now, ‘nomophobia’, meaning the fear of not having our mobile.
When you’re addicted to your smartphone, you’re also more likely to phub others ("phone snub", where you ignore the person in front of you to check your phone), which can negatively affect social interactions and relationships.
But it gets worse.
In 2017, I read a concerning study indicating that having your phone in front of you contributes to “brain drain”.
The paper says, “We provide evidence that the mere presence of consumers’ smartphones can adversely affect two measures of cognitive capacity – available working memory capacity and functional fluid intelligence – without interrupting sustained attention or increasing the frequency or phone-related thoughts”. The “brain drain” effect was worse for people more dependent on their smartphones, the same group that benefited most when the phone was out of sight.
In the study, three different groups of participants were asked to place their phone in a specific location before attempting a high-focus task. Those who had their phones on silent in a separate room performed best on the cognitive test given. Next best were the people with the phone in their pocket. The loser of the bunch was the third group, who each had their phone sitting on their desk while doing the task.
The results were clear: Having your phone close by reduces your cognitive abilities.
And no, you can’t just pop it face down and hope that will do the trick. Turns out the face-down and turning off methods don’t remove distraction. The phone needs to leave.
Since reading that study, whenever I conduct a long training session with a group, I ask them to put their phones away - off the desk. (If you have trained with me some time since early 2017 and experienced my requesting this, now you know why I am so insistent. This is also why we created the “detox box”, where training participants can voluntarily place their phones in a box that sits in the corner of the room. Highly recommend.)
So, what to make of all this? iPhones (and androids… I guess…) are the modern-day personal diary in more ways than one. The little taps and swipes and scrolls we make are meaningful: They tell our story in ways we don’t realise.
And while there are immense advantages that come with having one of history’s most powerful machines in the palm of our hands, we must exercise caution. Being more cognisant of “brain drain” by phone presence can help us take steps to regain our focus. That is, get the phone out of sight so it can be out of mind.
In some ways, putting your phone away for a while might also become a welcome relief from that constant underlying pressure to be available 24/7. In recent months, I’ve found considerable calm in turning off my phone and leaving it in my bedroom for hours at a time. If you’re able to, it might be a good ritual to try.
I’m curious… considering your own smartphone habits, what do you think they reveal about your personality?
This piece first appeared in my newsletter. To get pieces like this delivered straight to your inbox weeks ahead, alongside book recommendations and updates , click here.