Smartphones Reduce Brainpower, Even When Turned Off

As children study today their phones are usually nearby: in their pocket, on their desk or in their hands. Whenever they are around them, smartphones have the ability to reduce their brain power. Periods of separation from them would serve learners well, during tasks that require their best minds.

In an experiment led by Dr Adrian Ward, researchers wanted to know whether the presence of smartphones can affect mental performance. Participants were to take two tests that measured mental sharpness. During the tests, they were subject to three conditions. Some left their phones outside of the test room. Others brought their phones into the test room but had them in their bags/pockets, and still others had their phones on the table face down. In all cases the phones were switched off. [1]

The students were then given two tests. One measured working memory capacity, which reflects the ability to focus on a task; and the other, fluid intelligence, the ability to reason and solve an unfamiliar problem. 

As you can see from the results, the students who did best were those who had their phones in a different room. Those who had their phones on the table did the worst, and those who had their phones in their pockets or bags came out in the middle. Researchers concluded poor performance was due to the brain using up attentional resources to inhibit automatic attention to their phones. Put another way, their minds were using up energy to resist the urge to be distracted by their phones, which left very little of their attention resources focused on the test.

The results led Dr Adrian to conclude that the “integration of smartphones into daily life” appears to cause a “brain drain” that can diminish such vital mental skills as “learning, logical reasoning, abstract thought, problem-solving, and creativity.” The impairment on our brains he says is on par with the effects of lacking sleep. [2]

Whatever affects our attention, affects our ability to learn, reason, problem solve and to think creativity. Attention is need for all these other mental processes to occur. [3][4] But why do smartphones have such a pull on our attention; why is it so distracting, you may wonder.

The costs of our smartphone are linked to the benefits they provide us, and how important they have become in our everyday life. Research in cognitive psychology tells us that as well as being a thinking system, our brains are also monitoring systems. They are continually monitoring our environment for things that are habitually important to us. For example, while engaged in a conversation, if you were to hear your name in the background, you would automatically orient yourself to the direction you heard your name. Your brain pays automatic attention to the sound of your name.

The experiment led by Dr Adrian Ward suggests that having our phone nearby is similar to hearing our name being called constantly. Our phones pull on our attention in the same way hearing our name said out loud does. In fact, studies have shown that the same automatic attention systems that are activated when people hear their name, are also activated when they hear the sounds of their phones, but not when they hear other people's phones.

During mental work, learners will perform better, dear reader, if they will have their phones out of sight, where they can’t compete for their attention. What has become a habitual way of using smartphones is also a way to diminish one's abilities to think, learn, reason, and problem solve.

[1] Ward, A. F., Duke, K., Gneezy, A., & Bos, M. W. (2017). Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2(2), 140–154. https://doi.org/10.1086/691462

[2] Duke, Kristen, et al. “Having Your Smartphone Nearby Takes a Toll on Your Thinking (Even When It’s Silent and Facedown).” Harvard Business Review, 24 Apr. 2018, hbr.org/2018/03/having-your-smartphone-nearby-takes-a-toll-on-your-thinking.

[3] Wolf, M. (2019). Reader, come home: The reading brain in a Digital World. New York: Harper.

[4] Goleman, D. (2013). Focus: the hidden driver of excellence. Bloomsbury