The Green Valley: The Use of Mobile Narratives for Reducing Stress in Commuters

New technologies have influenced communication and interaction among people, enabling them to overcome face-to-face limitations and eliminating the need for persons in a communicative relationship to be in the same place at the same time. This project aimed to test the effectiveness of mobile phone usage applied to emotion induction. The authors wanted to check whether or not mobile narratives supported by multimedia mobile phones can enhance relaxation and reduce anxiety in a sample of commuters. The project sample consisted of 120 commuters, college students aged 20 to 25 years. The sample was randomly assigned into four conditions: the Vidnar group experienced the mobile narrative on a mobile phone during their daily train trip; the Nonar group experienced only video content proposed on a mobile phone; the MP3 group experienced only the audio content proposed on an MP3 player; and the Control group provided a no-intervention condition. The study measured participants' emotional state (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory [STAI] State questionnaire), trait (STAI Trait questionnaire, Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale), and sense of presence (Slater-Usoh-Steed Questionnaire [UCL-SUS] and the International Test Commission-Sense of Presence Inventory [ITC-SOPI]) before and after the experience. The main results showed a significant decrease in anxiety level (p < 0.05, assessed by STAI State questionnaire) and an increase in relaxation level (p < 0.001) assessed by the Visual Analog Scale (VAS). No significant differences were found in other conditions.