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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

#41

Post by throwawaycopy »

thesagan wrote: post #23

I lost mine about six months ago and I haven't replaced it. First couple months I noticed I got VERY irritable when I got a momentary flash of boredom, especially waiting in line in stores, etc. Figured that might've been a budding mental issue, and decided to work on my patience and expectation-setting as a result. This has been part of a larger life exercise in practicing general moment-to-moment mindfullness, and…

Try keeping a sketch pad for quick illustrations or perhaps a notebook for poems. The world is filled with inspiration! Not only will you be more present, but you'll be turning your seemingly humdrum life into a work of art!

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

#42

Post by aggie »

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.

That was what they had participants do in this study, and they still observed the effect.

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

#43

Post by KGIII »

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 realize that I am not typical, but I seldom even have my phone turned on, and don't even take it with me very often.

I was tethered to a phone for years. I am retired. I only take it if I am expecting to be idle. Then, I take it so I can browse while waiting.

It feels kinda nice, frankly. I am not a technophobe. It's just nice to not be beholden to my phone.

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

#45

Post by danso »

zachd1_618 wrote: post #40

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 k…

When I need a break from social networks, I just log out of the app/sites on my phone. Since most of my passwords are unmemorizable (and stored in a password manager), it's quite a bit of work to get logged in again. It's enough work that I'll put it off for a week at least.

*typo

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

#46

Post by danso »

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.

After I lost my phone to a robber late at night, I walked home (which was about 15 minutes away) so I could look up the nearest police precinct station. The detectives looked at me like I was the biggest idiot for not calling 911 from the nearest pay phone (this was before NYC converted their pay phones into whatever they are these days).

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

#47

Post by wdewind »

nwatson wrote: post #3

Bards 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…

> But ... few people complain about how books corrupt our memory.

Socrates absolutely did.

> for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Phaedrus#On_the_decline_of_Gr....

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

#48

Post by bigbugbag »

shoshone wrote: post #10
weberc2 wrote: post #9

Earlier 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.

Attention is not a measure of memory, on the contrary. Memories are a a measure of attention as if you don't pay attention you will hardly form a memory.

smartphones are not what you say they are, without internet smartphones are close to tracking, privacy invasive, useless bricks. Something like computers with no arms and both knees broken.

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

#49

Post by bigbugbag »

danso wrote: post #45
zachd1_618 wrote: post #40

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 k…

When I need a break from social networks, I just log out of the app/sites on my phone. Since most of my passwords are unmemorizable (and stored in a password manager), it's quite a bit of work to get logged in again. It's enough work that I'll put it off for a week at least. *typo

social networks ? like playing sports with friends, visiting family, job events ?

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

#50

Post by preek »

tristanho wrote: post #39

An effortless hack which I've gotten a lot of utility out of: put your phone behind your laptop. Out of sight, out of mind (and you can't feel it in your pocket either!)

In hindsight, this seems so obvious!

Thank you for sharing this hack. I think I will employ it regularly in the future.

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