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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)

#91

Post by socalnate1 »

joshe wrote: post #74
socalnate1 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this response overly dismissive. Did you read the paper or just the abstract? Dismissing the work of marketing professors out of hand isn't the right approach. What if this is one of the half of psychology papers that do replicate?

Scanned the paper too with sci hub. Nothing remarkable. But we should be dismissive of any new results from psychology, it just doesn't have systems in place to validate claims. There is some cool stuff in psychology that has been replicated 20 times, across different cultures, and over time. But the chances of a headline psychology paper being true are, generously, 5%. To be far to the authors, they are in a bit of…

I think skepticism is warranted, but dismissiveness is not. Honestly it's a little offensive.

Also, in this case their findings aren't even counter intuitive or that surprising. They are just measuring something that most of use believe already (judging by the rest of these comment threads).

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

#92

Post by Aerroon »

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.

I'm the same. I look at a map beforehand and try getting there on my own. If I can't then I can always use some navigation assist later.

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

#93

Post by Jtsummers »

toast0 wrote: post #88
Jtsummers wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree, but I selected the Fire specifically for PDF reading, and its support for AnkiDroid and Rosetta Stone. And it was a lot cheaper than any other tablet I found.

And yeah, the browser is pretty mediocre so it's not a huge distraction, but it is a distraction for me.

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

#94

Post by _bramses »

I actually use two phones. One is an old one I planned on recycling, but now I use it as my "focus" phone. The only apps on it are: Forest, Spotify, Kindle, and the ones Apple won't let me remove.

When I'm working I put my main driver phone in another room entirely. This strategy has been doing wonders for my focus, and I still get to jam to my favorite tunes while working.

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

#95

Post by reificator »

Aerroon wrote: post #92
reificator wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm the same. I look at a map beforehand and try getting there on my own. If I can't then I can always use some navigation assist later.

I'm not ashamed to say I've gotten lost doing this occasionally and either turned on directions or just double checked the GPS.

But it's fairly infrequent and it doesn't happen twice in the same place.

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

#96

Post by Aerroon »

JJMcJ wrote: post #8
omgwtfbyobbq wrote: post #5

I feel like this applies to just about anything that compels us to pay attention to it (TV, video games, etc...), albeit in different ways depending on the media.

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.

Funnily enough, I got into the habit of reading books on my phone. It actually started to hurt my wrists, because I ended up reading every free moment I had.

Walking somewhere? Reading at the same time. Cooking? Reading. Eating food? Reading. Walking through the supermarket? Reading. Sitting on a bus? Reading. Lying down in bed, because I'm feeling tired? Reading.

If my phone had been waterproof I would've probably read in the shower/bath as well.

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

#97

Post by Barrin92 »

phobosanomaly wrote: post #54

Perhaps it's functioning as a substitute for the constant social interaction that was once a facet of living in a tribal society. We always had someone near us we were chatting with, but now that we have eliminated that level of social connection in the modern social environment, we have replaced it with the smartphone. It may just be satisfying a hardwired biological need for constant chit-chat. If you look at it th…

Social Media isn't a substitute for healthy social interaction which becomes very evident when one looks at the psychological outcomes of people who use it heavily, particular say, teenage girls.

Most social media interaction isn't genuine conversation between peers but a sort of status contest in which people pull up façades and present idealised versions of themselves, mostly strongly influenced by whatever is trending within society at large.

An important finding of loneliness research has repeatedly been that loneliness is not equivalent to merely not being in contact with others. One can be alone but not lonely, and one can be lonely while superficially in contact with others.

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

#98

Post by nobody9999 »

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…

> 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.

As a suggestion, take a book you've been wanting to read and keep it in the bathroom. And while you're sitting on the pot, read the book.

That's what I do, and I find it to be quite satisfying. What's more, just going in there puts me right back in the middle of whatever I'm reading.

Or not. That works nicely for me, but might or might not for you.

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

#99

Post by fullstop »

shados wrote: post #72
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…

The urge to use it right before bed (and at the same time wrecking your sleep quality, and then messing with your next day) is huge too.

I don't have a problem with this, at all. With that being said, my phone (OnePlus 7T) has a "Zen Mode" which locks you out of the phone for a set period of time. You can make and receive phone calls, and take photos, but that is it.

I don't use it, as I am not a heavy phone user, but I can see where it may be helpful for some people.

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

#100

Post by crazygringo »

First of all, with the caveat that, as is so common with psych studies, this was performed on undergraduates only. There is no reason to assume that this would necessarily extend to a 30-year-old mother, a 40-year business executive, etc. (To the contrary, one could also imagine that having their phone on them increased their capacity to think about other things, with the peace of mind that they can get things done efficiently.)

But secondly, the headline to the paper "reduces available cognitive capacity", while written to sound bad, isn't obviously bad at all.

Your overall cognitive capacity isn't reduced -- it's just some is being taken up by thinking about your phone. One hypothesis could be that if you're able to be reached, then you spend time worrying about the things people will be reaching you for -- if you've sent that e-mail, if you've finished that report, if you've decided whether or not to go to that event.

That these are things you have to figure out or do anyways, and if you're not worrying about them now, you'll still have to later. Yes, removing the smartphone lets you relax for now, but that's just temporary. Otherwise it might be happening later over dinner instead.

What would be more interesting would be to find variance in the data -- which participants had reduced cognitive capacity and which didn't -- and then correlate that with other reported differences, such as their stress levels, to-do's, obligations, etc.

I'm quite sure the answer isn't as simple as "smartphones make us dumb", but closer to the truth that in being instantly connected to other people, that's something our brain is busy managing. But you know what? That may very well be a net benefit -- that being connected allows us to achieve our goals better, more, faster. That the cognitive capcity it's using is a good use.

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