New study: How digital technology can steal your time

We spoke to 300 people across Europe about the way they use digital technology and found that many described how it robbed them of their time in various ways.

Our new study published in Computers in Human Behavior is now available to read here.

Using digital technology can be frustrating: Technologies can make us feel that we are wasting or losing time, whether we scroll through social media or need to sift through a full inbox of emails. To find out why we feel this way and how exactly digital devices seem to take away our time, we interviewed 300 people from Spain, Poland, Czechia, Germany, Switzerland and the UK.

People from all countries reported similar experiences: Time on digital devices feels “wasted” as it is seen as unproductive or inauthentic. We lose track of time while absorbed in the online world and ultimately stay on digital devices longer than intended. Although we feel this time should have been invested in “better” activities, we continue to use digital technology to fill time, which leaves us feeling regretful and guilty. To reclaim control over our time, we aim to strike a balance between online and offline activities yet struggle to do so in a world where digital technology is ever present.

And the thing is, it's like for me it [digital technology] is a time thief. Evidently I can say, I catch myself doing it, that it would be better to read some collected thoughts... I mean on the basis that I could probably read more and bury myself in this crap less

(Polish research participant)

To read the full findings of our study and discover more about how digital technology can steal our time, click here.