The Mere Presence of Your Smartphone Reduces Brain Power, Study Shows (utexas.edu)

An anonymous reader shares a study: Your cognitive capacity is significantly reduced when your smartphone is within reach -- even if it's off. That's the takeaway finding from a new study from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. McCombs Assistant Professor Adrian Ward and co-authors conducted experiments with nearly 800 smartphone users in an attempt to measure, for the first time, how well people can complete tasks when they have their smartphones nearby even when they're not using them. In one experiment, the researchers asked study participants to sit at a computer and take a series of tests that required full concentration in order to score well. The tests were geared to measure participants' available cognitive capacity -- that is, the brain's ability to hold and process data at any given time. Before beginning, participants were randomly instructed to place their smartphones either on the desk face down, in their pocket or personal bag, or in another room. All participants were instructed to turn their phones to silent. The researchers found that participants with their phones in another room significantly outperformed those with their phones on the desk, and they also slightly outperformed those participants who had kept their phones in a pocket or bag.

Comments

Totally Anecdotal But...

[MightyMartian]

I can see how your smartphone represents a significant distraction. I'm working towards my Bachelors right now, and had to do a math course, never my strongest suit. I found having my smartphone nearby really did represent a kind of a distraction. The temptation when working on a hard problem was to check my texts or my emails, and so long as that damned smartphone was within easy reach I'd often give into temptation. In the end I'd either leave it in the bedroom, or go into the office in the evening without it and work out of the meeting room without even a computer nearby. Particularly for the last couple of courses I've basically sequestered myself away with printed copies of assignments and the textbooks for the purposes of studying for my final, using pen and paper to write out notes and definitions.

Re:crap study

[gweihir]

It is. Problem is there is a hardcore faction that does it really well, but has almost no "flashy" results. And then there is a "soft science" faction that gets almost all press time. In addition, many people mistake fuzzyness for lack of scientific rigor. That is not true, it just becomes harder to understand the results.