Thanks for all the rationalization I could ever want for keeping my phone on DND 24/7
The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity
11–20 of 393 posts
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity
#12Bards pre-literate-times in Greece purportedly could recite Homer's Odyssey themselves after one hearing. Writing destroyed that all. (Maybe I don't have a citation right off, but I've read that on the web or heard it in some college class years ago ... in any case, ability to retain heard information has likely declined since then). But ... few people complain about how books corrupt our memory. So we're the first g…
You seem to be defending against a claim the study does not make. They're not saying "smartphones make us stupid because Google's in your pocket!" Rather, the study is saying that by having your phone on the desk or even in your pocket, you will exhibit decreased mental capacity because your brain is using some cognitive resources to monitor for notifications etc. This may be over-simplified but appears to be backed…
I keep my phone on silent and turn off all vibrations. There's no way to notify me of anything until I look at it, but that's a feature.
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity
#13I know that I'm guilty of this - just voluntarily putting my phone in the other room causes withdrawal-like anxiety, followed by a greater sense of awareness. Maybe future generations will see our management of information devices as backwards and unhealthy once we learn more about the human brain, the same way we treat smoking, child-rearing, and daily routines of yesterday as horrifyingly detrimental.
In the near future we're going to see even more "information diets", "digital cleanses", meditative go-to-nature sort of breaks integrated into lifestyle routines.
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity
#14Wake me up after the registered replication.
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity
#15We just need better integration with our exocortex.
Please explain...
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity
#16I know that I'm guilty of this - just voluntarily putting my phone in the other room causes withdrawal-like anxiety, followed by a greater sense of awareness. Maybe future generations will see our management of information devices as backwards and unhealthy once we learn more about the human brain, the same way we treat smoking, child-rearing, and daily routines of yesterday as horrifyingly detrimental.
When I realize my phone has been out of reach for more than a few minutes my stomach drops because of the chance I've missed some catastrophic work alert that means our company's servers are all down... I probably need a new job.
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Books serve the same function as memory, but they did it better. Smart phones don't serve (much less improve on) the function of "attention", so I'm confused by your analogy.
Its still about memory. Attention span is a measure of memory. Writing stands for the absence of something (a voice or community). Smartphones compensate for so many kinds of absence at once.
You can have good memory and low attention span. Other way round too.
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity
#18The proliferation of video currently gets my goat. I like to read news, not watch it.
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity
#19So true. And in-car GPS keeps your sense of direction from developing.
I've seen people stymied as to how they could possibly make a phone call without their phones. Payphone. Borrow someone else's. Not that hard.
I used to think this would only ever happen to geeks like me. Boy, was I wrong.
Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity
#20Bards pre-literate-times in Greece purportedly could recite Homer's Odyssey themselves after one hearing. Writing destroyed that all. (Maybe I don't have a citation right off, but I've read that on the web or heard it in some college class years ago ... in any case, ability to retain heard information has likely declined since then). But ... few people complain about how books corrupt our memory. So we're the first g…
You seem to be defending against a claim the study does not make. They're not saying "smartphones make us stupid because Google's in your pocket!" Rather, the study is saying that by having your phone on the desk or even in your pocket, you will exhibit decreased mental capacity because your brain is using some cognitive resources to monitor for notifications etc. This may be over-simplified but appears to be backed…
So then the title is misleading. It is not the presence of a smartphone, but over using the notification feature of the phone that causes the issue.