Microprocessing
Big Screens Are Actually Better for You
The ergonomics might suck, but for most of us, bigger is better
A small iPhone presents a big problem for me: I can’t see its screen. Not that well, anyway. Even the screen on my iPhone XR, which is just under six inches tall and three inches wide, is a bit small (I bought it because it was the cheapest new phone at the time). While a big phone is a bit of a pain in the butt to use when you’re packed like a sardine on the subway or walking the dog — especially for someone like me who is five feet tall with proportionally sized hands — it’s well worth the ergonomic trouble.
Big phones may be harder to hold, but when our lives are increasingly shaped by what happens on their screens, their size offers something crucial: the ability to both cognitively grasp and emotionally connect with what’s displayed there.
A study from 2018 found that screen size was directly and significantly related to how well students did on a test. The researchers did an experiment in which students watched an hour-long movie about European history on either a 3.5-inch, seven-inch, or 10-inch smartphone. When, at the end, the students took a quiz testing their knowledge of the film, the researchers found that the larger the screen size, the better the student…
