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The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity

journals.uchicago.edu

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Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity

#31

Post by ue_ »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #12
jff wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps there is a second side to it in that you'll be thinking about what the best time is to next check your phone. Granted it's a little far removed, but it's plausible. It stands for other commitments that run all the time too, though.

Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity

#32

Post by ashark »

Apocryphon wrote: post #13
schnevets wrote: post #8

I 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.

My wife and I recently spent a few nights at an Airbnb in the mountains where we couldn't get cell reception and the wifi had a crappy satellite Internet connection we'd been asked to avoid using as much as possible. Also none of our digital crap was there, just a few physical books we brought and some card games the hosts provided.

It felt great. It's had me thinking more and more or the digital things and the hyper-available entertainment and information (and, maybe importantly, hyper-available choice of which to indulge in, at a moment's notice) as kind of junk-food like.

Yeah it's cool to be able to watch all this crap from my childhood, and a thousand great tv shows or movies, or hundreds of the best video games yet made, or browse endlessly for new music tailored to my tastes, or whatever, totally on demand—but maybe that kind of thing's just not healthy to have around.

Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity

#33

Post by djsumdog »

stretchwithme wrote: post #19

So 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.

But you won't know the number. You'd need to go to as library first, log into whatever service you keep your contacts on (I run my own radicalie carddav, but most people use Google or Apple's services) and find their number.

I use to have most of my friend's phone numbers memorized by the shape they made on the keypad. Today we stay in contact with a lot more people, or at least I do, and it helps to no need to memorize numbers.

Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity

#34

Post by mi100hael »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #12
jff wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think there's a subtle difference between "monitoring for notifications" and actual notifications. Your phone might be on do-not-disturb mode, but that doesn't mean your brain isn't distracted wondering whether someone replied to your last message or returned your call from yesterday. Taking it out of your pocket and leaving it in another room or your car or wherever lessens the compulsion to frequently pull it out and check.

Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity

#35

Post by jff »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #12
jff wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I do the same, although I spend far too much time on it despite such efforts. Totally blocking notifications from 90% of applications helps too.

Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity

#36

Post by cdkee »

I haven't gone quite so far as to ditch my smartphone yet, but I now leave it on silent, no vibrations or LED notifications or anything. Whenever I check my phone maybe once an hour at work I see anything that requires my attention, otherwise I put it away. It's made me more sane, but I've often thought about ditching it entirely. It's sad that I feel like I might not be able to function entirely without it.

Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity

#37

Post by jff »

ashark wrote: post #32
Apocryphon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My wife and I recently spent a few nights at an Airbnb in the mountains where we couldn't get cell reception and the wifi had a crappy satellite Internet connection we'd been asked to avoid using as much as possible. Also none of our digital crap was there, just a few physical books we brought and some card games the hosts provided. It felt great . It's had me thinking more and more or the digital things and the hype…

> Yeah it's cool to be able to watch all this crap from my childhood, and a thousand great tv shows or movies, or hundreds of the best video games yet made, or browse endlessly for new music tailored to my tastes, or whatever, totally on demand—but maybe that kind of thing's just not healthy to have around.

I feel the same, although I have a hard time articulating it well. I think I'm slightly better at not watching hour after hour of utter garbage than I used to be, though.

Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity

#38

Post by _puk »

stretchwithme wrote: post #19

So 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.

Reminds me of the first time i got the "no cars in your area" message on Uber.

Mild panic, how do I get home?!

Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity

#40

Post by zachd1_618 »

Like most commenters here, I've found a happy medium (when I activate it). I'm no good at cold turkey and being without this amazing device is just impractical, but airplaning the phone routinely throughout the day really helps to cut down on "notification checking" and that constant background mental polling that this article talks about. I still like to have music (audiobooks actually) and navigation on hand, but knowing I have no notifications and knowing that there is just a tiny bit of effort involved in getting them seems to be my effective compromise.
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