Streaming delays are mentally taxing for smartphone users

Streaming delays are mentally taxing for smartphone users who are working under time constraints, the Mobile World Congress edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report reveals. Conversely a delay-free experience triggers a positive emotional response and increases brand engagement for mobile operators.

The report also forecasts social networking traffic over the next six years to be 12 times that of the last six. Neuroscience technology was used to objectively measure emotional responses to varied smartphone experiences. Delays in loading webpages and videos under time pressure caused mobile users' heart rates to rise an average of 38 per cent.

Six-second delays to video streaming caused stress levels to increase by a third. To put that in context, the stress incurred is equivalent to the anxiety of taking a math test or watching a horror movie alone, and greater than the stress experienced by standing at the edge of a virtual cliff. In the study, the Net Promoter Score of an operator increased by 4.5 points when associated with a delay-free experience.