Smartphones and Exercise

It seems you can’t look around without seeing people using a smartphone everywhere these days: at the beach, in the car, while grocery shopping, waiting in line, and even while exercising. Researchers at Kent State University delved deeper into the effects common smartphone uses (talking, texting, and listening to music) may have on our exercise habits.

Researchers studied the effects of using smartphones during exercise to talk, text, and listen to music compared to not using a smartphone at all during exercise. Average treadmill speed, heart rate, and enjoyment of exercise were all assessed in this study.

Interestingly, the 3 uses of smartphones had different effects on exercise. They found that using the smartphone only for music had positive increases in speed, heart rate, and enjoyment. Talking on the smartphone increased enjoyment, but decreased speed. Texting while exercising reduced speed and heart rate, but had no effect on enjoyment.

Overall, researchers found that talking and texting led to decreased exercise intensity. Reducing intensity of exercise has been shown to reduce the health benefits of exercise. As most people cite a lack of time as their largest obstacle to exercise, when they are making the time to exercise, they should avoid talking and texting in order to prevent the reduction in benefits that may occur. Since listening to music was the only feature that increased all three areas of study (enjoyment, heart rate, and speed), researchers suggest that people would get the most benefit from listening to music on a device other than a smartphone, since there would be no chance of being disturbed by phone calls or texts during exercise.

The above is brought to you by Dr. Shillingford, M.D., P.A., a board certified general surgeon specializing in sleeve gastrectomy, gastric bypass, and lap band surgeries. Dr. Shillingford’s bariatric weight loss patients come from all over Florida including Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Wellington, Orlando, and West Palm Beach. As exercise is important to both weight loss and health, Dr. Shillingford encourages his gastric sleeve, gastric bypass, and lap band patients to make the most of their time exercising.