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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

#351

Post by brational »

capnrefsmmat wrote: post #162
copperx wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you not married, or do not have children or old parents? I would not forgive myself for missing an emergency call because I was hoping to be more productive.

The iOS Do Not Disturb feature allows you to set an exclusion for a chosen group of contacts, so you could allow calls from your spouse or parents while blocking everything else. I have it scheduled to turn on every night so I'm not disturbed by spam calls at 3AM, with a few family members excluded.

same - except my DND is set for midnight until 4pm. i still check the phone at lunch or when i get to work but i otherwise wont notice it unless it actually rings.

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

#352

Post by anbende »

seszett wrote: post #329
anbende wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bluetooth radio transmitter for the car is like $100 (for a good one). Quality is only slightly worse than radio (for a good one). Problem solved. Enjoy

Worse than radio? That's not what I have experienced. I'm using a 1,5€ BK8000L module ( http://www.electrodragon.com/w/BK8000L ) that I soldered to my old stock autoradio, replacing the tape audio circuit, and the quality is much better than FM.

Sounds like you're connecting the device directly to the audio system. With a radio transmitter, you're broadcasting on an fm band that the car picks up via the fm tuner.

Of course if the person is willing to attach something to the car audio as you have, that's the best!

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

#353

Post by MengerSponge »

whitepoplar wrote: post #166

What I really want: an ultra high-end cell phone that has a camera built in. Phone calls, SMS, photos, and that's it. Differentiate on build quality, great design, and minimal features.

https://lifehacker.com/how-i-turned-my-iphone-into-a-simple-...

The iPhone has the best build quality (come at me), and you can easily make it do what you're looking for here. A device that doesn't give you the option of extra features won't sell enough to get the scale you need for really high build quality.

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

#354

Post by brational »

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…

Depends on your family situation but android/ios phones shuold all have a DND mode that you can put on a schedule and allow exclusions for "favorites" or something of the sort. I have mine on DND from bed time through end of work day with only the wife and immediate family excluded. leave it in a bag or out of site and only check it at defined breaks. strikes the balance for me.

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

#355

Post by AlexCoventry »

richardknop wrote: post #296
AlexCoventry wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Authenticator works fine with an offline device, and SMS-based 2FA is insecure.

Right, but you still need a device. So you can just switch your smartphone into airplane mode and only turn the airplane mode when you want to make a phone call / use wifi.

You need a device, but you don't need a cellphone plan.

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

#356

Post by m1n1 »

alsetmusic wrote: post #97
KGIII wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This reminds me of my experience giving up my wristwatch. I would glance at it frequently, but then didn't know the time because the behavior was strictly reflex. Finally, someone asked me for the time right after I did this and I had to look again because I hadn't internalized it. That was the day I removed my watch forever. Your comment about being beholden to your phone reminds me a a great quote that I recalled o…

Some folks glance at their watch and reduce the time to an enum with only a few purpose-driven values like NeedToHurry, PlentyOfTime. Once the reduction takes place, the actual value for time is garbage collected. The enum is carried forward as needed.

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

#357

Post by pbhjpbhj »

j9461701 wrote: post #305
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is clearly false: the meaning of words being readily looked up, for example, or common multiplications. Probably he meant "I never make effort to ...". Which IMO is foolish - for most people - but probably reflects more that he easily memorised facts without effort (something I was fortunate to experience in my youth and which is now sorely missed).

He made that comment in reference to not knowing the speed of sound off hand, and it is not remotely foolish. It is a very bad student that wastes his time memorizing endless reams of facts, rather than trying to understand the deeper meaning of what they are reading. >Education Is Not the Learning of Facts, But the Training of the Mind To Think -Also Einstein Information is only useful insofar as it furthers underst…

If you work on subject matter you commit it to memory simply through familiarity, this is a great boon as it simplifies many analyses to recall facts.

What good knowing how to think without having the standard inputs; this enables focus on the wider problem rather than interrupting to feed in necessary facts.

E=hf ... but hang on, does that make sense, the trained mind can analyse it. Sure you can look up energies, and Planck and frequencies but having any of those to hand makes your work more efficient. It doesn't just have to make theoretical sense except for v. v. few ... and I say that as an erstwhile theoretician.

Don't get me wrong. Learning facts as a goal is inherently misdirected. But facts are the atoms on which the trained mind works.

Moreover axioms are facts that can't be intuited or derived, they must be learnt of existing systems or defined of new ones.

I think the position espoused in those quotes is hyperbolic.

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

#358

Post by dredmorbius »

dredmorbius wrote: post #294
ekianjo wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plague killed way more people than nukes ever did, and there was no way to stop it until people understood what spread it. Of course technology has bright sides as well. Without medicine and many other discoveries we would not be where we are today.

Yesterday's risks were exogenous. Few were existential. Today's are engogenous. Several are existential.

Erm, endogenous.

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

#359

Post by johnnydoe9 »

starik36 wrote: post #221
notadoc wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am always confused about posts like these. iPhone 7 comes with lighting headphones. Why can't you use those? No dongle required.

It's a one-device investment, you can't even use them on macbooks without a dongle converting it to 3.5mm jack let alone people who have 2 phones and the other being an Android, can't use the headphones on Android tabs or laptops. No point getting locked in.

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

#360

Post by Principe »

I've been trying to stay on top of my technology usage. I'd like to move all my electronics out of my bedroom and buy an old fashioned alarm clock. I've heard this is good for sleep and healthy habits and what not

I've been trying to stay off my phone when I'm bored and clean/read/do something productive without technology. I'm glad I had a chance to grow up in the 90's before tech was involved from every waking moment.

It doesn't help that I'm a network admin and I work on my computer all day

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