A phenomenon called “email apnea” (EA), defined as a combination of shallow breathing and breath holds during screen usage, is circulating on blogs and news articles, yet lacks scientific support....Show moreA phenomenon called “email apnea” (EA), defined as a combination of shallow breathing and breath holds during screen usage, is circulating on blogs and news articles, yet lacks scientific support. This study directly explores the existence of EA an its impact on working memory performance with a mixed factor design. Sixty participants (mean age 21,1) were divided into a screen versus paper condition and performed a reading and writing task during which respiration patterns and blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) were measured with a respiration band and pulse oximeter. Measurements were taken in 5-minute epochs: baseline , two reading task epochs (R1, R2) and two writing task epochs. Afterwards, the participants performed a 3-level n-back task measuring working memory performance. The hypotheses predicted that there would be a difference in the respiration and SpO2 between the screen and paper conditions, coupled with a decrease in n-back performance in the screen condition. Bayesian repeated measures ANOVA showed no differences between the conditions for the mean breath durations, inhalation/exhalation ratio and SpO2. The results of the Bayesian independent samples T-test analyzing n-back task performance were also inconclusive. Interestingly, participants showed a strong effect of time for mean breath duration decreasing during the reading task and decreasing further during the writing task while the inhalation/exhalation ratio was lowest during R1 and highest during R2. This study provides evidence against EA, although subsequent research should explore if adding the variable stress could provide more insight.Show less
