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The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)

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Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)

#81

Post by ThouYS »

joshe wrote: post #18

"Journal of the Association for Consumer Research" and vague implied effects on mental state both pretty good indicators that this will not replicate. About half of psychology papers don't replicate anyway, the field has been doing some house cleaning, which is awesome, but needs to do a lot more. Oh you can add that all the researchers are marketing professors at business schools (one now at Snap). Good job on the m…

I share your sentiment, but to make it more concrete, here are a few quickly glanced things that give good/bad indications:

+ >500 participants

+ Report not only aggregated values, but also bar charts with confidence interval (you can compare for yourself)

- Charts don't start at zero (gives reader wrong impression about effect size)

Need to read it more carefully though, because I would like to agree with the paper, since I notice this effect myself a lot. Also very related to ego depletion, which doesn't seem to be even mentioned in the paper, weirdly enough. Maybe they wanted to coin their own term.

Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)

#82

Post by nobody9999 »

jessaustin wrote: post #53
Shared404 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both are sides of the same coin. I just figured I'd bring up the other side.

Frankly I don't see any disagreement. I didn't say "old guys" as an epithet. They call themselves that...

>Frankly I don't see any disagreement. I didn't say "old guys" as an epithet. They call themselves that...

As an older (never old! Okay not for another ten years or so. :) ) guy, I can say that while I do have a smartphone, I primarily use it as a (gasp) phone. I also do SMS (Signal is preferred, but many folks aren't security conscious) and read email.

I don't use my phone for anything that has or could have financial implications -- phones just aren't secure enough for that.

What's more, after being an early adopter of social media (FB in 2004), I gave it up years ago because the business model was clearly exploitative and I wanted no part of it anymore.

Besides, as an IT/InfoSec professional, I spend way too much time looking at screens anyway and don't need to be constantly looking at my phone too.

Heck, I just went and ran a few errands and didn't even bring the damn thing with me.

I'd point out that it wasn't very long ago that few people had mobile devices. In fact, when I was a child, few people even had (now obsolete) answering machines in their homes.

And wonder of wonders, we managed to do just fine.

Sure, it's useful to have a device that allows me to look up directions or get information about someplace I may be going, or let others know if I need to change plans or similar stuff. But that's just convenience, not a necessity.

I've been working with, designing and implementing internetworking solutions since ~1990, most of that time as a paid professional, so I'm not exactly a Luddite either.

In fact, I'm more technical than most younger people. And because I've been doing InfoSec for decades, I'm aware of the risks, as well as the benefits of being constantly connected.

IMHO, unless there's some important reason to be tethered to one's device (a family member's health, on-call duties, etc.) the risks often outweigh the benefits.

Now get off my lawn!

Edit: Added context WRT convenience vs. necessity

Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)

#83

Post by justinlloyd »

ben_w wrote: post #20
JJMcJ wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go to laundromat. Bring book, this time I'm going to get some reading done. Oooh, moldy golf tournament (or soap opera) on TV. And there goes 90 minutes.

For the same reason, my ex always avoided food places with TVs in them whenever she could.

I hate going to restaurants or bars with friends/colleagues/family where the bar or restaurant has a TV showing whatever it is showing. Everyone inevitably gravitates to watching the TV rather than having a conversation. I can have dinner in front of a TV at home.

Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)

#84

Post by reificator »

wussboy wrote: post #71
blackearl wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think it's better to develop the will power to not hop on your phone whenever available, take a breath, smell the flowers, but also still have the option of something as amazing as GPS. Not really interested in going back to pulling over and looking at a map these days.

Will power don’t really work that way. Studies show it is an exhaustible resource and if you’re using it all day to fight of pulling your phone out of your pocket, you won’t have it for anything else you do in your day (and you’ll STILL probably pull your phone out!) The people with the best will power have organized their lives so that they don’t need will power.

I was under the impression that those studies not only failed to replicate but in fact more recent studies found the opposite...

Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)

#85

Post by Spearchucker »

manaskarekar wrote: post #52
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my smartphone and am not the OP, but I spent several years on Windows Mobile which supported almost no apps, so it was kinda like a dumbphone. I think people often overestimate their need. People act like they can't live without Google Maps, but 90% of them take the same route to work every day. I would argue if you aren't traveling outside your local area, you have zero need for a mapping app. It's true you m…

This was also my experience with the Lumia 920 (greatest phone + OS combo ever IMHO). The maps ("Here") on Windows Mobile were actually not bad at all. Using this phone taught me not to be obsessed with instant mail notifications among other things.

I still use my 950. People get annoyed with me because I don't use messenger or WhatsApp. It does email and phone calls just fine. Anything other than that or surfing the intertoobs can wait until I get to a PC.

Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)

#86

Post by bentcorner »

stevensawtelle wrote: post #15
perlgod wrote: post #10

Getting rid of my smartphone was without a doubt the most positive thing I ever did for myself. I'm sure some people have the self-control to use it sparingly. But for me, not having to constantly fight the urge to check my always-connected magic pocket internet portal has freed up a huge amount of my mental willpower, which I can now redirect to other more important things. Now that everything is closed, I don't eve…

Can you talk more to the practicalities of getting rid of a smartphone? Have you seriously found that the loss of the conveniences they bring haven't been that burdensome? I am really intrigued by the idea but find it almost inconceivable to work for me (which might speak to an addiction, so I feel compelled to understand this further)

If you have a Samsung phone a more gradual step in this direction is their maximum battery saver mode (my S7 had it, at least, not sure about more recent models). It turns the phone into close to a dumb phone (iirc no social media apps, maybe a web browser). Only a subset of preapproved apps are available in this mode.

Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)

#87

Post by justinlloyd »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #14

I was just remarking the other day while doing my morning constitutional that I can't remember what I used to do while sitting on the john when I didn't have a cell phone. I honestly couldn't remember. Probably just sit quietly and think and be bored. I wonder if boredom is good for us. Our brains probably need time not to be engaged with our eyes do mental housecleaning. Meditation is good but it's not the same as s…

I've always wondered about people who take smartphones to the bathroom. Unless I am desperately sick I don't think I spend long enough on the toilet to even get through the first two lines of marketing blurb on a shampoo bottle before "I'm done."

I think boredom is good for us. Personal opinion. Though I am terrified of being bored. So I go find a productive distraction. But I also think, again, personal opinion, people are afraid to be alone with their own thoughts.

Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)

#88

Post by toast0 »

Jtsummers wrote: post #42
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last week when I was in a hospital waiting room, I knocked out A Brief History of Time in one sitting. That thing's been on my bookshelf for at least ten years untouched. I'm not sure it significantly enhanced my life (though it helped my understanding of the fabric of the universe, I guess?), but it felt like an accomplishment.

I spent a good chunk of the last few years in physical therapy. Before sessions in the waiting room, and during the period of the session where they're applying heat/cooling or electricity I got a lot of reading done. I had a rule, broken recently and I need to restore it, of no electronics in my sitting room. Made it a very productive reading area as well. No laptop, tablet, kindle [0], or phone. At most I listened…

> It's a Kindle Fire in my case. Which offers some of the same distractions, despite being lower power

A Kindle Fire is an Android tablet with a bad launcher and no Google services pre-installed. If you're not reading books that need a tablet (color, animations?, illustrations you want to zoom on), you'd probably do better with an eInk Kindle. They have a web browser, but at least the ones I've had, the browser is so terrible, it actively makes you not want to use it.

Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)

#89

Post by reificator »

perlgod wrote: post #10

Getting rid of my smartphone was without a doubt the most positive thing I ever did for myself. I'm sure some people have the self-control to use it sparingly. But for me, not having to constantly fight the urge to check my always-connected magic pocket internet portal has freed up a huge amount of my mental willpower, which I can now redirect to other more important things. Now that everything is closed, I don't eve…

Looking at these comments I'm realizing I might be an outlier.

If I'm traveling to an area I've never/rarely been before, I'll use turn by turn navigation the first few times.

But once I'm familiar with the area I just look up the specific place for the nearest cross streets before I leave.

I kind of assumed that's how everyone navigated, minus taxi/delivery/other professional drivers who probably use GPS more.

Re: The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)

#90

Post by tgb »

reificator wrote: post #89
perlgod wrote: post #10

Getting rid of my smartphone was without a doubt the most positive thing I ever did for myself. I'm sure some people have the self-control to use it sparingly. But for me, not having to constantly fight the urge to check my always-connected magic pocket internet portal has freed up a huge amount of my mental willpower, which I can now redirect to other more important things. Now that everything is closed, I don't eve…

Looking at these comments I'm realizing I might be an outlier. If I'm traveling to an area I've never/rarely been before, I'll use turn by turn navigation the first few times. But once I'm familiar with the area I just look up the specific place for the nearest cross streets before I leave. I kind of assumed that's how everyone navigated, minus taxi/delivery/other professional drivers who probably use GPS more.

This is what I do if I'm walking, but I mechanically follow the GPS if it's on and I'm driving. Means I have no clue where things are unless they're in walking distance.
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