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

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

#101

Post by jxramos »

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…

> shifting cognitive burden of some kinds of memory (all those phone numbers) elsewhere

I recognized that my mind started to become a mental index of information at some point. This is to say that I hold memories of compressed information that I can expand with key search terms to hook onto the information I am actually seeking. One recent example was searching for "Milton Friedman Thalidamide FDA" because I knew it would snag an Uncommon Knowledge discussion I shared with a developers group recently.

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

#102

Post by ultimoo »

richardknop wrote: post #99
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…

How do you deal with 2FA?

Not OP, but I suppose one could set up SMS based 2FA on a cell phone that is not a smart phone for most major services out there.

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

#103

Post by thesagan »

richardknop wrote: post #99
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…

How do you deal with 2FA?

I have a little widget similar to this hooked on my keychain for AWS: https://safenet.gemalto.com/multi-factor-authentication/auth...

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

#104

Post by udhan »

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!)

Phone in the pocket (silent) works well for me. At home, I just put it on charge somewhere and mostly forget about it. However, a side effect of it is, In my social circle, I am the guy who doesn't respond on time. I miss phone calls all the time. But since I do it consistently, everyone knows nowadays. :)

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

#105

Post by scriptkiddy »

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…

To be fair, if you remember only the main events of any story, it's not difficult to recite it from memory. For instance, I've read the Lord of the Rings trilogy many times. I had no problem reciting the entirety of it to my grandmother after my first read through. You may think that a story recited this way would be shorter, but it's not difficult to improvise or embellish. The Odyssey has an extremely simple plot by today's standards. It's been quite a while since I've read the book, but I'm pretty sure I could skim through the cliff notes and tell a pretty compelling version of it.

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

#106

Post by shric »

danso wrote: post #46
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).

Is it really considered okay to call 911 for a stolen phone? I thought 911 was for emergencies (e.g. imminent danger to property or someone's life or health). If your phone's already stolen, what can the police do urgently? This assumes they can respond quickly. I wouldn't have thought a stolen phone would result in a quick response in NYC.

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

#107

Post by sizzle »

thesagan wrote: post #61
kowdermeister wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine simply died and I also skipped buying a new one, this was in last September. I didn't even have a cell phone for months :) Now I just use my dumbphone. I lasts a week on one charge. I didn't miss the calls, or anything. Only the possibility to take pictures on the spot.

I do miss the camera sometimes. :(

get a dedicated pocket cam

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

#108

Post by scriptkiddy »

notadoc wrote: post #58
buf wrote: post #44

I want to learn Japanese. 3 months ago I changed my phone's language to Japanese. Everything is Japanese - maps, services, apps that read from the default phone language. Oddly enough, instead of learning Japanese, I just use my phone less.

That's kind of funny. Similarly, I stopped listening to any music on my iPhone once I got an iPhone 7. Unexpected side effect of having no headphone jack, but I always forget the dongle somewhere. So, no more music from the iPhone. I listen to old am/fm talk radio again instead.

For a second I thought you were implying that not listening to music is a good thing. Glad to hear that's not what you believe.

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

#109

Post by liberte82 »

jff wrote: post #7
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…

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…

As a manager in IT I have to have my phone on 24x7 for escalations and I hate it. On the occurrences that I take a real vacation and can turn my phone off, something in my head flips and I can truly forget about it. When it is on, there is something subconscious that will not quite let go and I can feel it.

I feel I would benefit greatly from being able to truly turn my phone off one day a week.

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

#110

Post by [deleted] »

jff wrote: post #7
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…

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…

[deleted]
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