• ‘Pacifier’ Smartphones
Smartphones can act as “adult pacifiers” for their users. Shiri Melumad, a marketing professor in the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, has found that stressed consumers “show greater recovery” after using their smartphones than folks who use identical content on other devices. “You might want to feel a little bit better about your relationship to your phone. It seems to have, at least in the short term, some positive outcomes,” she said.