Navigating from live to virtual social interactions: looking at but not manipulating smartphones provokes a spontaneous mimicry response in the observers

Abstract

By gathering data on people during their ordinary daily activities, we tested if looking at, but not manipulating, smartphones led to a mimicry response in the observer. Manipulating and looking at the device (experimental condition), more than its mere manipulation (control condition), was critical to elicit a mimicry response in the observer. Sex, age and relationship quality between the experimenter and the observer had no effect on the smartphone mimicry response that tended to decrease during social meals. Due to the role of food as a tool in increasing social affiliation, it is possible that during communal eating, people engage in other forms of mimicry involving facial expressions and postures rather than the use of objects. Understanding the ethological mechanisms of the use of smartphones at everyday-social scale could unveil the processes at the basis of the widespread/increasing use of these devices at a large scale.

Social Isolation Affects the Mimicry Response in the Use of Smartphones

“…The dataset used for the analyses included the data collected in 2020 from Maglieri et al ( 2021 ) and a new set of data collected in Italy across six months (May–October 2021). The 2020 data collection was carried out immediately after the Italian lockdown, a complete confinement which produced a state of isolation instituted for health security reasons (March 9–May 18, 2020).…”

“…We included in the analysis only the sequences of actions that fulfilled the following criteria for both the Experimental (EC) and the Control (CC) conditions, as defined in Maglieri et al ( 2021 ). The EC and CC were identical except for the presence of the action “ looking at the screen .” In the EC, the trigger picked up, kept in their hands, handled their smartphone (e.g., fiddling and swiping), and looked at the screen for at least five seconds (Fig.…”

“…Immediately after the trigger picked up their device (t 0 ), all the observers were followed for 30 s by the experimenters, who assessed the presence/absence of a mimicry response with the aid of a wristwatch (Casio F-91 W-1YER-P). The time window was set according to the results obtained by Maglieri et al ( 2021 ), showing that the mimicry responses concentrated in the first 30-sec block of observations. In the case of mimicry response, we also recorded which kind of activity the observer did on his/her smartphone (e.g., check social media, take photos, surf the internet).…”

“…Mimicry can also involve manipulation of objects such as pens and cigarettes (Harakeh & Vollebergh, 2012 ; Harakeh et al, 2007 ; Stel & Vonk, 2010 ; van Baaren et al, 2006 ). A recent study also demonstrates that the use of smartphones can trigger a mimicry response in the observer, and this phenomenon may be one of the reasons for the wide diffusion of these devices (Maglieri et al, 2021 ). After collecting ethological data on unaware people, the authors found that subjects mimicked others looking at their phones in about 50% of cases.…”

“…Specifically, we predict that immediately after the forced social isolation period, Italian people were more prone to engage in live social interactions rather than in virtual ones, thus showing a lower mimicry response in the use of smartphones. We followed the same naturalistic procedure of behavioral data collection applied by Maglieri et al ( 2021 ). After the administration of experimental ( manipulating and looking at the screen ) and control stimuli ( manipulating without looking at the screen ), we assessed the presence of spontaneous mimicry response in the observers and directly compared the data gathered during the months immediately following the lockdown (May–September 2020) with those gathered one year later (May–October 2021).…”