Beware The Smartphone Suck

Although smartphones can be useful exercise tools, they also can hinder your results.

- Karen Asp

Do you have nomophobia? Most people do, and this very real fear of not having your smartphone immediately next to you at all times can be a real issue, especially as it relates to your workout.

It might seem like a no-brainer that when you talk or text on your smartphone, your workout suffers, yet researchers still wanted to know just how much phone use could impact a workout. So they put individuals through one of two 20-minute treadmill workouts: one group served as the control and had no smartphone access, while the other group could talk and text on their phones as much as they wanted.

The thing most impacted about the workouts was intensity: smartphone users completed six minutes less of vigorous-intensity exercise and 10 minutes more of low-intensity activity than the control group, according to this study published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior. “Because you’re doing two things at once, you’re not able to participate as fully in your workout,” says Michael Rebold, Ph.D., CSCS, study co-author and department chair and assistant professor of exercise science at Hiram College in Ohio.

In addition, you are likely looking down while checking your phone, and a study published in