Having your smartphone with you reduces your brain power (even if it’s off)
Those endless beeps, buzzes, notifications and alerts that keep you gripped to your smartphone are seriously distracting – but that’s not all.
New research has found that just having your smartphone with you actually reduces your cognitive capacity (brain power) – even if it’s off.
Researchers from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin conducted experiments with nearly 800 smartphone owners.
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The volunteers completed brain tests – some with a smartphone on the desk face down, some with it in their pocket, and some with their phones in another room.
All the phones were set to silent – and the volunteers with phones in another room significantly outperformed those with phones in their pocket or on the desk.
McCombs Assistant Professor Adrian Ward said, ,’We see a linear trend that suggests that as the smartphone becomes more noticeable, participants’ available cognitive capacity decreases.
‘Your conscious mind isn’t thinking about your smartphone, but that process — the process of requiring yourself to not think about something – uses up some of your limited cognitive resources. It’s a brain drain.
‘It’s not that participants were distracted because they were getting notifications on their phones. The mere presence of their smartphone was enough to reduce their cognitive capacity.’
