CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 162Attachment and Relationship DynamicsImpact of Technology on AdolescentsEvolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 132 of the 132 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Smartphones and Close Relationships: The Case for an Evolutionary Mismatch

Sbarra, David A., Briskin, Julia L., Slatcher, Richard B.·2019·Perspectives on Psychological Science
DOI 10.1177/1745691619826535
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

This article introduces and outlines the case for an evolutionary mismatch between smartphones and the social behaviors that help form and maintain close social relationships. As psychological adaptations that enhance human survival and inclusive fitness, self-disclosure and responsiveness evolved in the context of small kin networks to facilitate social bonds, promote trust, and enhance cooperation. These adaptations are central to the development of attachment bonds, and attachment theory is a middle-level evolutionary theory that provides a robust account of the ways human bonding provides for reproductive and inclusive fitness. Evolutionary mismatches operate when modern contexts cue ancestral adaptations in a manner that does not provide for their adaptive benefits. We argue that smartphones and their affordances, although highly beneficial in many circumstances, cue humans’ evolved needs for self-disclosure and responsiveness across broad virtual networks and, in turn, have the potential to undermine immediate interpersonal interactions. We review emerging evidence on the topic of technoference, which is defined as the ways in which smartphone use may interfere with or intrude into everyday social interactions. The article concludes with an empirical agenda for advancing the integrative study of smartphones, intimacy processes, and close relationships.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1177/1745691619826535

Cites

132 of 132 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Show all 132 references

Research works printed but not linked: 12

  1. Bailenson J., 2018, Experience on demand: How virtual reality is, how it works, and what it can do
  2. 10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497 · DOI · Paper page
  3. Brenner S. L., 2015, Journal of Evolutionary Medicine, 30, 32
  4. Derlega V. J., 1993, Self-disclosure
  5. Emler N., 1994, Good gossip, 117
  6. Gardner W. L., 2005, The social outcast: Ostracism, social exclusion, rejection, and bullying, 227
  7. Hazan C., 2004, Adult attachment: New directions and emerging issues, 55
  8. Kelley H. H., 1983, Close relationships, 20
  9. Reis H. T., 1988, Handbook of personal relationships, 367
  10. Tamir D. I., 2015, The psychology of desire, 432
  11. Turkle S., 2011, Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from ourselves
  12. Twenge J., 2017, Igen: The 10 trends shaping today’s young people—and the nation

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Sbarra, D. A., Briskin, J. L., & Slatcher, R. B.
Affiliations
  • University of Arizona (US)
  • Wayne State University (US)
Corresponding author
Sbarra, David A.
ORCID
Venue
Perspectives on Psychological Science
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2019-04-19
Volume
14
Issue
4
Pages
596-618
ISSN
  • 1745-6916 (ISSN-L)
  • 1745-6924
DOI
10.1177/1745691619826535
OpenAlex
W2902638667
Semantic Scholar
f02a1245ac9c7b9b4e17fb55933afa073ac1fcea
Cited by
162
References
132
Citations by year
2026: 16 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 41 · 2019: 3
FWCI
2.88
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
  • Perspectives on Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • UA Campus Repository (The University of Arizona) (acceptedVersion)
  • OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Attachment and Relationship Dynamics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
Keywords
smartphones, close relationships, evolutionary mismatch, technoference, self-disclosure, responsiveness, attachment theory, intimacy, social interaction, inclusive fitness, family networks, social networking sites
MeSH terms
Smartphone, Biological Evolution, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Object Attachment, Social Behavior, Trust

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review