The Mere Presence of One's Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity (2017)
journals.uchicago.edu
journals.uchicago.edu
> Using the same tasks and conditions as in Ward et al.'s (2017) second experiment, the present study found that the “brain drain” effect did not replicate: there was no difference between smartphone location conditions on performance on either the o-span task or the go/no-go task.
Fake study, move along
>All analyses in experiment 1 include a “Week” factor to account for variation across research assistants; this factor does not interact with Phone Location in any analysis (all F < 1.27, all p > .28).
What was the variation? What was the factor? Why was it only needed in experiment 1 and not in the rest of the experiments?
Are we really supposed to believe that in 2008, some turtle-necked evil genius permanently impaired the entire world?
> I note that one attempt to replicate the study did not find that phone location affected performance (Ruiz Pardo & Minda, 2022). But other studies have found that when phones are visible, they have disruptive effects. See Dwyer et al. (2018); Tanil & Young (2020); Skowronek et al. (2023).
> those without smartphones had higher recall accuracy compared to those with smartphones.
These seem reasonable. But they have little to do with this study, they are explained by competing attention and that smartphones also substitute for rote memorization.
> the mere presence of a smartphone results in lower performance on a concentration and attention test
This is more interesting. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10249922/ It was conducted via videoconference though, so I wonder how much attention was devoted simply to the videoconference. And there was no effect of smartphone dependence.
Now there are patterns in the studies, I am sure there are interesting conclusions to be drawn, I just don't trust Haidt to do that kind of analysis.
I think he GP was making the comparison based on both phones and cigarettes being addictive. What's the comparison with newspapers that makes one productive of the other?
Tell me which one already looks dumber.
I'm pretty sure the post was making a reference to the addictive properties of cigarettes and smartphones. Yet, either way, society's values change.
I've intentionally never owned a smartphone myself. Our kids don't have it either. It is always fun to suddenly notice during train trips that we're more or less the only family here occupied with actual, real-life talking that also involves actual eye contact, lol.
That being said, maybe the communication pattern of two smartphone users sitting side by side is nonetheless still signaling the same humanly care, warmth, etc. Yes, there is a (IMO silly) technical device in between, but I'm not sure if all this would actually mean that it is "less humane" etc. It's just... different. Maybe.
There's nothing special about phones (in this sense). Most people just aren't interested in interacting with the other people around them. Or that might just be the famous British Reserve in action.
Very good point, thanks for this. Might indeed be first and foremost simply a personality trait (they would have been "introverts" and reluctant to conversation also in the pre-smartphones era, or even in the 19th century).
The book ends.
You may be engrossed for a while, or a long while, or even a very long while, but eventually you get bored. You have to close it for a while and look around, or talk to someone, or just sit there.
A phone with internet is infinite. You get bored of (a) and then you can go to (b) then (c) then back to (a) for hours and hours and hours and hours on end.
In the same way, it’s clear and established that social media apps’ UX-features such as infinite scroll are devastating for our mental and somewhat physical health. They leverage a fundamental brain pattern, just like nicotine in cigarettes creates addiction. We need mandatory splash screens with advice on all this when we open Instagram or TikTok. And we should impose legal limits on features like infinite scroll or pull to refresh.
I would like that Europe’s penchant for hyper regulation would lead the way in this field, instead of just pushing for more blatant favoritism towards shitty companies like Spotify just because they’re European.
An airline do that kind of crap, let them know and book another airline next time.
They all do the same kind of crap? Well, the apps are not required to ever fly, at least not yet.
I’m not sure why this has to be a govern me harder kind of thing…
Related, I do believe smartphones are a distraction, which is why I opted for an Apple Watch Ultra II with a LTE connection. Paired with AirPods Pro, it has the benefits of connectivity (calls, texts, emails, music, appt reminders, electronic payment, etc…), but is too inconvenient of a form factor to mindlessly scroll.
A month ago, I was reading the news of my country of birth to decide if it looks stable enough to go there and then get out without surprises at the border.
Two months ago, I was reading the news of my country of residence to choose when to go to the shower, trying to avoid running to the shelter naked.
Hell, I might consider relocation to your country.
If so, expect that they use the smartphone not only to entertain themselves but also to signal to you that they're not interested in talking.
Before the smartphone this role was taken up by the Walkman. Before that the newspaper. It's not really a tech issue. It's a human thing.
So, I've taken to wearing earphones to signal I'm not interested in talking, sometimes I'm not even actually listening to anything, most of the time the volume is low enough that I can hear everything just fine. I'll even intentionally pull my phone out and try to look like I'm doing something on it to signal my disinterest.
On the other hand, if I see someone I wouldn't mind speaking to, like if someone looks like they have a question, they need help or if they are wearing/doing something interesting, I won't do any of that and may strike up a conversation myself.
This idea reminds me of that meme template of the guy standing in a corner at a party thinking "they don't know that I..." while everyone else is busy enjoying themselves.
Pre-smartphone I'd probably be using an mp3 player or playing on a handhold console and always carrying a book to read (or appear to read).
The examples of public transport are especially odd, the very purpose of being on transport is that you would rather be somewhere else, why would they interact with strangers? I remember the pre-smartphone world, people still didn't regularly engage in casual conversation with strangers on public transport, they read, listened to mp3 players, played on handheld consoles, or most often, just napped.
In fact, were it not for the camera (and the fact that I dearly love taking photos) I would regularly leave home with just my Watch.
The iPhone is vastly more convenient than any of them. I’ll often use something else when I’m going out specifically to take photos, but the iPhone is always with me for spontaneous shots.
The shitty camera on my Fairphone takes objectively worse photos, but I can send them to my wife or WhatsApp group(s) immediately. So they're massively more useful despite being worse.
I’ve also kinda started a white lie when people start probing into why I don’t do most of phone calls - “I’ve a condition where I can’t do VOICE on the phone.” It is kinda of a lie but also not NOT a truth.
That said it’s become clear to me that even different profiles on my phone don’t solve the problem of distraction In the same way that putting my phone in another room/using a different device does.
To speculate a bit: if I were able to use generative UI To customize the experience on my phone, I could enable useful tools like posting to social media, while disabling distracting features like scrolling through the newsfeed. In this way, I could separate my consumption and creation time for more than I can now.
Even if the negative effects are real and measurable, it's going to take a LOT to displace all the positives to make this a net negative addition to humanity.
Some discussion then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14639967
Including some comments on the paper's flawed research: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14645120
This to me, seems the key insight of the article. The phone represents a constant drain on our attention as we try to _not_ focus on it, like a slow battery drain.
Is a dumb phone a good idea?
I’m mainly just worried about passwords