Here’s a little-known fact: Owning a smartphone can make you feel better about the world. At least, that’s what a recent poll from Microsoft has found. A global Microsoft poll, released at the Davos World Economic Forum, found smartphone owners around the globe see the world as more “cooperative and harmonious” than non-smartphone owners. They’re also more likely to think social values are improving than eroding — 51 percent of smartphone owners held that positive view, versus 33 percent of non-smartphone owners. The result is just one of several effects of technology that Microsoft measured as part of a wide-ranging poll to determine how personal tech has changed everything from how Internet users in 10 countries view the arts to how it alters their parenting techniques.
