Just the Sight of Your Phone Decreases Your Brain Power

Amazingly, science is showing that your phone reduces your brain power just by being present. You don’t have to be using the phone, and it doesn’t have to be dinging a notification. It just has to be there. Study results published in the Journal of Social Psychology found that the mere presence of a smartphone can distract you by diminishing your attention span and cognitive ability. The research concludes that the more attached you are to your phone, the greater the “cognitive smartphone tax”. One study, Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity, explained it this way:

Our smartphones enable—and encourage—constant connection to information, entertainment, and each other. They put the world at our fingertips, and rarely leave our sides. Although these devices have immense potential to improve welfare, their persistent presence may come at a cognitive cost. In this research, we test the ‘brain drain’ hypothesis that the mere presence of one’s own smartphone may occupy limited-capacity cognitive resources, thereby leaving fewer resources available for other tasks and undercutting cognitive performance.

Results from two experiments indicate that even when people are successful at maintaining sustained attention—as when avoiding the temptation to check their phones—the mere presence of these devices reduces available cognitive capacity. Moreover, these cognitive costs are highest for those highest in smartphone dependence.”

Your Attentional Resources Are Limited

Your ability to pay attention is a limited resource and is much smaller than you might think. Because of this, much of your world goes unattended and unnoticed most of the time. You’re simply inattentionally blind to it. So, your brain learns to automatically pay attention to things that are habitually relevant to it – like your name.

Even when you’re focused on a different task, your ears perk up whenever you hear your name because your brain subconsciously notices and diverts attention to it. The same thing is happening with your phone. Additionally, when you try to ignore the pull of your smartphone, you’re expending mental effort to suppress the urge. This is also a distraction that makes you think less effectively.

Just having your phone in sight reduces attention and cognitive ability.

Your Phone Makes You Less Capable, But You’re Not Aware of It

The data clearly shows that our ability to perform erodes if our phones are nearby. However, we don’t recognize the degradation of performance. In other words, research shows that we think we aren’t affected by our phones being around, but we are. In this way, mobile phones are similar to drunk driving or texting while driving. You think you can do it without consequence but aren’t aware that your ability is impaired until it impacts you negatively.

Brain Health Is Real