http://www.breakingnews.ie/world/new-study-suggests-having-your-smartphone-within-reach-reduces-your-brain-power-even-when-its-turned-off-794980.html
New study suggests having your smartphone within reach reduces your brain power
â even when itâs turned off
Smartphones can make us physically lazy (UberEATS, anyone?), but new research
shows they might also be making our brains dull as well.
According to researchers from the University of Texas in Austin, US, having
your mobile phone within your reach can significantly reduce your cognitive
capacity, even if the device is turned off.
The researchers from the universityâs McCombs School of Business conducted
two experiments with 800 smartphone users to see if phones had any effect on
the brainâs ability to hold and process data at any given time.
In the first test, the researchers asked study participants to take a series of
tests that required full concentration for good scores.
The test subjects were asked to keep their phones on silent mode and, at
random, place them either on the desk face down, in their pocket or personal
bag, or in another room.
The results showed the participants who had their phones in another room
significantly outperformed those with their phones on the desk, and slightly
outperformed those who had their phones in a pocket or bag.
âWe see a linear trend that suggests that as the smartphone becomes more
noticeable, participantsâ available cognitive capacity decreases,â McCombs
professor Adrian Ward said.
âYour conscious mind isnât thinking about your smartphone, but that process
â the process of requiring yourself to not think about something â uses up
some of your limited cognitive resources. Itâs a brain drain.â
(Yui Mok/PA)
The second experiment saw researchers look at how a personâs smartphone
dependence affected cognitive capacity.
The tests and the instructions this time round were exactly the same as the
first experiment except for one small change: some participants were also
instructed to turn off their phones.
The researchers found that test subjects who performed the worst were the ones
who were the most dependent on their smartphones â but only when they kept
their devices on the desk or in their pocket or bag.
And it didnât matter whether a personâs smartphone was turned on or off, or
whether it was lying face up or face down on a desk.
âItâs not that participants were distracted because they were getting
notifications on their phones,â said Ward.
âThe mere presence of their smartphone was enough to reduce their cognitive
capacity.â
The study is published in Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.
Sent from my iPhone
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