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Education Businesses The Almighty Buck Science

The Mere Presence of Your Smartphone Reduces Brain Power, Study Shows (utexas.edu) 144

Posted by msmash from the god-damn-it dept.
An anonymous reader shares a study: Your cognitive capacity is significantly reduced when your smartphone is within reach -- even if it's off. That's the takeaway finding from a new study from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. McCombs Assistant Professor Adrian Ward and co-authors conducted experiments with nearly 800 smartphone users in an attempt to measure, for the first time, how well people can complete tasks when they have their smartphones nearby even when they're not using them. In one experiment, the researchers asked study participants to sit at a computer and take a series of tests that required full concentration in order to score well. The tests were geared to measure participants' available cognitive capacity -- that is, the brain's ability to hold and process data at any given time. Before beginning, participants were randomly instructed to place their smartphones either on the desk face down, in their pocket or personal bag, or in another room. All participants were instructed to turn their phones to silent. The researchers found that participants with their phones in another room significantly outperformed those with their phones on the desk, and they also slightly outperformed those participants who had kept their phones in a pocket or bag.
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The Mere Presence of Your Smartphone Reduces Brain Power, Study Shows More

The Mere Presence of Your Smartphone Reduces Brain Power, Study Shows

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  • Totally Anecdotal But... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Monday June 26, 2017 @02:27PM (#54693533) Journal

    I can see how your smartphone represents a significant distraction. I'm working towards my Bachelors right now, and had to do a math course, never my strongest suit. I found having my smartphone nearby really did represent a kind of a distraction. The temptation when working on a hard problem was to check my texts or my emails, and so long as that damned smartphone was within easy reach I'd often give into temptation. In the end I'd either leave it in the bedroom, or go into the office in the evening without it and work out of the meeting room without even a computer nearby. Particularly for the last couple of courses I've basically sequestered myself away with printed copies of assignments and the textbooks for the purposes of studying for my final, using pen and paper to write out notes and definitions.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by TWX ( 665546 )

      It's a similar problem with general-purpose computers in education settings like schools. That general-purpose computer is capable of doing thouands of things, only one of which is the assignment at-hand. This is compounded by the experience of using the computer being similar-to or the same-as using one's personal computer for entertainment.

      I have a feeling that down the road, those with self-discipline to stay on-task despite the extremely easy opportunity for distraction will generally rise farther and

    • Yeah I noticed this with internet stuff in general, now I have a certain hour of the day where I do that stuff and the rest of the time I don't. I feel a lot better overall, it's amazing really.

    • Not really.

      Two things to keep in mind when you interpret the results of this study:

      1) the participants were undergraduates.
      2) the reward involved was credit.

      Your exclusion set is people older or younger than the university and those who would participate in a study for college credit. This may have a notable impact on the validity of the study, since those who don't need or care about the credit are most likely those who are studious and resistant to distractions, while those who would go out of their way t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sootman ( 158191 )

      Main issue is being forced to do non-essential work you hate. As a kid, I could sit in an empty room and stare at the walls and daydream for hours instead of doing homework.

      The only thing that keeps me doing actual work at my job is knowing that I like living in a house and eating food.

    • Doesn't your smarthone have an airplane mode? I keep my gadgets close at hand. I have them loaded with a bunch of offline apps, including an offline copy of Wikipedia and Wiktionary and the usual calculator and document viewer. You can be the master not the slave of your gadgets, if you know how to limit or restrict them, disabling features you don't really or currently need. If you're studying for an exam, constant net access and Facebook are one of those.

      • I'll be honest, I'm sure it's a character flaw on my part, but if the damned thing is near me, I'm going to end up using it, and as disabling Airplane Mode is pretty trivial, it would prove no barrier. The best solution for me is simply to avoid temptation entirely. I'll go into the office or somewhere else quiet, and leave the phone at home. If it isn't there, it can't tempt me.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Well, this is not really new. Back when I did my Calculus and Linear Algebra exam preparation, I basically borrowed my parent's basement so I did not have easy access to my computer (C64 at that time, gives you a hint how old I am). This allowed me to work long stretches on the proofs and exercises without distraction. Cot stuff that really needs your mind to be all present, you need to get away from your electronic gadgets. These days, I use a whiteboard when faced with such tasks, standing before it does

  • /. = smart phone
  • I'm still getting Slashdot email notifications on my iPhone for responses to the virus-infected dick pics with my name, email address and website URL that some asshat posted over the weekend. I've always known that Slashdot had a fat porn fetish community..
    • Best not to engage with those pests... I know it's fun to mess with them, but they can be mean little currs.

    • I'm still getting Slashdot email notifications on my iPhone for responses to the virus-infected dick pics with my name, email address and website URL...

      Gosh - get well quick! No more vacations in Southeast Asia for you.

    • My advice, turn off email notifications from slashdot. Not only is it not beneficial to your life, it isn't beneficial to your conversations for you to instantly log in and fire off a reply instead of waiting until you're already coming to a forum to communicate, and doing the communication then. It is supposed to be asynchronous, no reason to make it blocking.

      I turned it off in 2000 and it was a huge improvement.

  • Is this something like Johnny Mnemonic (Score:5, Funny)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Monday June 26, 2017 @02:39PM (#54693623)
    Where my smartphone is secretly using my brain for memory storage?
    • No, it's just distraction. Your brain has to use extra power to compensate.
      • I know - I actually did RTFA. Just couldn't pass up the joke (which was my first thought after reading the headline!)

        It shouldn't be surprising really - social media is such a dopamine rush.

        • I know - I actually did RTFA. Just couldn't pass up the joke (which was my first thought after reading the headline!)

          It shouldn't be surprising really - social media is such a dopamine rush.

          I think you meant "dope mine rush".

        • Ah, I can't always tell. I know some things that make me prone to identify things differently from other people--most notably economics (which nobody is happy about), but also some armchair psychiatry stuff. I'm still waiting for them to figure out Atomoxetine is a mild antipsychotic (norepinephrine in the prefrontal cortex agonizes D2 in the prefrontal region, which downregulates D1) and that schizoids don't become dangerously-psychotic when exposed to dopaminergics because of a cognitive resistance.

          T

    • You have a memory leak...

    • Where my smartphone is secretly using my brain for memory storage?

      Yes, it is calculating and storing write-only garbage data using its biological subprocessor and DMA.

    • J.M. only had 320 gb of storge.

  • The tests were geared to measure participants' available cognitive capacity -- that is, the brain's ability to hold and process data at any given time.
    Because I realized my cell phone is not even in reach ... hurrying home now.
    PANICK!

  • Hollow vindication (Score:3)

    by WolfgangVL ( 3494585 ) on Monday June 26, 2017 @02:52PM (#54693723)

    While I've been arguing this very thing for years, I think this is such a hard thing to measure...I imagine smartphones in your pockets and such has about the same impact on general mental tasks as an opened window, or the school band practicing in the next room, or proximity to a personal attraction, etc...

    Did the people running the study have phones in THEIR pockets?

    Should have had the participants remember a few new phone numbers on the spot, or drive someplace new with just good directions; or write them for somebody else, or answer a few general knowledge questions from memory, or one of the many other basic things that smartphones do so well as to have become a crutch.

    I would love to see more advanced studies on this topic.

    • You might find people who have smart phones are more capable or driving some place new, even with no directions. They also have the amazing ability to provide directions with unprecedented accuracy, like they have a photographic memory, listing not just which streets to turn down but also the distance between turns and approximate travel times based on current traffic conditions.

      • Extended Mind (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        https://www.xkcd.com/903/ [xkcd.com]

      • Your probably right.

        One may also find those very same amazing direction giving people tend to not notice when the light turns green, as well as experience drastic drops in cognitive performance after long periods with no access to electricity.

  • All the researchers had smart phones in their pockets when the planned the test, ran the tests, and analyzed the results. Since they are all dumb due to the presence of their cell phones, their conclusions must be all dumb.

  • smartphone no make me dumb. me use smartphone now and me still smart. you no understand? we settle argument with guns! ;)

  • I feel so totally vindicated right now (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Monday June 26, 2017 @03:31PM (#54694053) Journal
    Aside from not owning or wanting a smartphone myself for a whole list of reasons, I've been saying that they're just making people dumber. Now someone has proof. :-)

    • You also seem to be totally making up your own results from a study you were not a part of.
      There wasn't a group in the study that did not own smart phones.

    • 1 study is not proof. Let's see if anyone can reproduce this result, or even if anyone finds this study to be worthy of attempting to reproduce. The soft sciences aren't exactly known for their rigor in conducting these sorts of experiments.

      There is s a heavy bias for experiments to yield a positive result, and good science is when every effort is made to eliminate the bias of the experimenters.

      This experiment seems like the people who designed it wanted a certain outcome, and I am skeptical that a busine

      • 1. I'm partly being funny.
        2. It's plausible.
        3. Are you going to argue to me that people don't seem to be getting dumber?

        • 1. I believe you.

          2. It is indeed plausible. Plausibility is a much lower threshold than proof. It could even be 100% true that cell phones make people dumber, without this particular study being conclusive proof of that fact. Look at how long it took to prove that cigarettes caused lung cancer. It was very plausible before it was proven.

          3. I don't know if you are asking me if people seem to be getting dumber to me subjectively or whether I think they actually are. I do think it seems like people are ge

          • Perhaps what I should be thinking is: "Dumb people are getting dumber, and smart people are getting smarter, and the contrast between the two is becoming greater in the process". Perhaps it's like certain types of crime; it appeared, at some point, that crimes like child molesting increased, but what really happened is it was being detected and reported much more than it used to, giving the surface appearance of increasing.

            • I don't even think there is any evidence to show that dumb people are getting dumber. In fact, the evidence suggests that most of the average increase in intelligence has been concentrated in the lower half of the distribution. It seems like it is not the dumb getting dumber and the smart getting smarter", but rather "The dumb getting smarter, and the smart staying the same".

              I don't think many people would have guessed that this would be the case. This is why it is important to do science in a way that c

              • *SHRUG* I don't know what to say, then. Seems like I see/read/hear dumber and dumber things all the time, the last 10-20 years. Then there's what I'm perceiving as people getting lazier, and technology being the enabler to them getting lazier. They're getting fatter and weaker, too.

                • I don't think it's only a feeling. I think we are indeed seeing/reading/hearing dumber and dumber things. I just don't think "people are actually getting dumber" is correct conclusion to draw from this observation, although this would normally seem like the obvious conclusion to draw in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

                  I think people are indeed getting lazier, fatter, and weaker. The evidence definitely seems to be corroborating this. Technology is no doubt a factor in allowing us the luxury of b

    • It's not just making them dumber, it's making them less sociable, have shorter attention spans, and vanity is rapidly increasing. As someone who also doesn't have a smartphone, I find it increasingly difficult to interact with people with smartphones. There is no depth or meaning to a conversation with someone who is just waiting for their phone to vibrate/beep. They are just killing time in the real world until someone gives them virtual gratification.

  • People care more about their phone than participating in a study about phones

    • Exactly, headline may as well be "College students are bored participating in a study for beer money"

      • It wasn't even for beer money, it was for course credit.
        They also got the credit regardless of how much effort they put in to the test.
        If the reward was based on the score of the test, I'm sure they would have worked harder with fewer distractions.

  • A riff on known multitasking studies? (Score:3)

    by enjar ( 249223 ) on Monday June 26, 2017 @04:20PM (#54694439) Homepage
    For ages, studies of "multitasking" have shown that there is a "context switching" cost that is non-trivial for the human brain to try and do two things at once, even simple tasks, such as "write numbers 1 through 26 and write the alphabet out". People who do numbers then alphabet (1..26 then A-Z) complete before people who try to interleave the tasks (1 ... A, 2. .. B). Work organization schemes like Getting Things Done encourage turning off notifiers for new email, or batching email responses, or turning off IM clients in order to get through tasks. Then, of course, there's the whole example of getting into the "flow zone", which is important for working on complex problems -- try debugging code with a bored and hungry toddler in the same room. It's also painfully obvious when you try to have a conversation with someone who keeps looking at their phone that they aren't "all present".

    So to sum up, unsurprising results. Having a distraction generating machine close at hand is going to end up with more interruptions and less ability to concentrate on anything worth concentrating on, e.g. http://heeris.id.au/2013/this-... [heeris.id.au]

    • I have often wondered at people who claim to do 4 or 5 things at once. How do they ever get anything done, especially if they are doing complex tasks?

      It has been my experience over my lifetime that any time I am interrupted doing a complex task that when I go back to it my first thoughts are, Ok, where was I? What was I doing? To get back to where I was before being interrupted takes time, and the more interruptions there are the worse the problem gets. If you have tools you're working with it gets wors

  • "study" tells us that UT Austin wasted a lot of time and resources. Did the researchers have smartphones in their possession while conceiving the study? ;)

  • Forcing you to put your cell phone in a different room causes high levels of anxiety methinks. Is this just a byproduct of anxiety, increased fight-or-flight processing, focused attention due to an uncomfortable situation, etc?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by swilver ( 617741 )

      ...I must be too old, but leaving my phone in another room does not raise my level of anxiety.

  • ... what (ping) was that again?

  • "McCombs School of Business"
    "nearly 800"

  • acts as a distraction != reduces brainpower

    That headline is just misleading clickbait.

  • No wonder I have no brain as an addict! :P

  • Smart phone, stupid people.

  • it's your smartphone who owns you.

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