Let’s face it: Most of us depend on our cellphones. We use them innumerable times a day to stay in touch with our children, get news updates, fill free time and see what friends are doing.
But the endless texting, calling, reading email and whatever else you do on your phone isn’t just draining your smartphone’s battery. It may be sapping your brainpower as well.
Not Just a Social Annoyance
Our cellphones are chronically within easy reach, including at the dinner table, while exercising and during downtime. When smartphones were a novelty, it didn’t seem as disconcerting to be constantly checking email and responding to texts or to witness others breaking from face-to-face interactions to do the same. It was even amusing at some point to watch people so devoted to technology — everything that chirped seemed to be critical or a crisis that needed an instant solution. Now it feels rude and inconsiderate, bordering on antisocial. And with so many teens and younger kids glued to screens, the omnipresence of smartphones can be a threat to academic performance and developing social skills.
New research from the University of Texas at Austin suggests your cellphone habits are more than just annoying to others. The mere presence of your smartphone drains brainpower; the higher your level of dependence on your phone, the greater the reduction in available cognitive capacity.
[See: 7 Ways Technology Can Torpedo Your Health.]
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
UT Austin marketing professor Adrian Ward led a team that set up two experiments over a two-week period to test if or how the presence of a smartphone affected working memory — which includes the capacity to select and process information — and functional fluid intelligence, including the ability to reason and solve problems. They also wanted to know if it made a difference where the phone was located and tested when the cellphone was in sight on a desk or out of sight, either in a bag or pocket or in another room.
The first experiment involved 548 undergraduates whose smartphones were either on their desk or near them with ringers and vibration settings turned off. The researchers found that the mere presence of a person’s smartphone adversely affects cognitive capacity “even when participants are not using their phones and do not report thinking about them.”
After completing a complex set of tasks, such as math problems and information-retention tests to assess attention, the students answered questions about how they felt their smartphones affected their performance on the tests. They were asked, for example, how frequently they thought about their phones and if they thought where their phone were located had an effect on their attention span.
In the second experiment, researchers explored how an individual’s dependence on their phone — the belief that they needed it at all times — affected cognitive capacity. Test subjects performed computer tasks, again with some having their cellphone on the desk, and others with theirs in a bag or pocket, in another room or turned off.
[Read: How Electronics Could Be Affecting Your Child’s Health.]
When participants were asked how the location of their cellphones affected their performance, probably like most of us would assert, the majority of test subjects said it had no effect; 75 percent claimed the location of the phone did not affect them at all, and 85 percent claimed that the location of their phone “neither helped nor hurt” their performance. The research showed otherwise, and having the cellphone nearby particularly challenged those who reported being phone-dependent. Ward found that those who clung more dependently to their phones did worse on the tests.
The results of the two experiments, published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research in April, indicate that “defined and protected periods of separation” between the cellphone user and his or her cellphone can improve brain function and allow people to perform better, not only because of fewer phone interruptions, but also because being away from your phone boosts brainpower.
As the school year gets underway, parents of children and teens who are predictably tethered to their phones should take note. Perhaps leaving phones in lockers when going to class might reduce children’s dependence and increase their academic performance. According to the recent research, those most dependent on their devices benefit the most from their absence.
[See: 9 Surprising Things That Happen When You Go on a Digital Detox.]
We all may want to rethink where and how we use our cellphones and our relationship with our phones. You may be surprised by how simply keeping it out of sight could free your mind.
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How Smartphones Sap Your Brainpower originally appeared on usnews.com
