Is Your Smartphone Making Your Stupider?

Here’s food for thought—what if we thought of our consumption of technology in the same way we think of our diets? That is, we know that food nourishes us and we need it for life. But there are foods that are bad for us—like Twinkies and bacon—and then there are foods that are good for us, such as Brussels sprouts. Likewise, overeating can have adverse health effects, such as obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease and other issues.

So, what if technology was the same way? What if there was technology that was good for us and technology that was bad for us. And what would be the mental health implications of an unbalanced diet?

That’s the question that Terry Gross discussed at length with Times technology journalist Matt Richtel on Fresh Air this week. And some of the answers they found may be troubling for the average smartphone user. For one, they broached the idea that maybe our smartphones aren’t making us more productive–they might even be doing the opposite.

The Myth of Multitasking

Since the dawn of the BlackBerry, we’ve been using our smartphones to multitask. We check our email while waiting in line at the bank. We read the news while sitting in front of the TV. And some of us (you know who you are) even update our Facebook status from the toilet.
But studies are emerging that indicate the human mind simply isn’t capable of true multitasking—that is, doing several tasks all at once. They say that you can’t read an email, while watching the news and texting a colleague, because just like you can’t listen to two conversations at the same time at a cockatiel party, your brain is physically incapable of processing two streams of information at once. Instead, what you’re doing is rapidly switching between tasks. This actually breaks your focus, since each time you switch tasks, you have to reorient yourself to what’s important for the task at hand. The net effect is that it actually takes longer to do any given task and you end up not doing it as well, since your attention is divided.

Addicted to your iPhone?

We all know that it’s tough to put down your smartphone, even for just a few minutes. But studies now indicate that your obsession with your iPhone might be more like an addiction. Each ring, buzz or notification you get gives you a “squirt” of dopamine. Dopamine is a natural neurotransmitter released by your brain which activates your pleasure receptors. The substances in drugs that make us feel good work by the very same mechanism. So, researchers conjecture that the tiny shots of dopamine we get from our smartphones is like a constant fix—and if we don’t get it, we get bored and anxious. That’s why you compulsive check your phone every few seconds—just to get that little jolt of adrenaline you get when you notice you have a new message, text or tweet.

The Three Day Effect

One of the most interesting findings from recent studies about smartphones and our brains has to do with the “three day effect.” The three day effect is a phenomenon observed by some neuroscientists who purposely sequestered themselves from digital media for a week, which meant no cell phones, no Internet and no TV. After about three days with no interfacing with technology, they noticed that they started to feel more relaxed, they didn’t feel a sense of urgency and some of them even slept better. Some believe that being disconnected from technology even helps you be more creative. By allowing yourself to become bored, your mind begins entertaining itself with thoughts, mulling over interesting ideas and thinking about ongoing projects. But with the constant interruption of cell phones, this void never exists to be filled.
Stress, Hormones and Memory

Other studies indicate that smartphones, with their incessant updates, notifications and ringing, cause you to be stressed at all times. You are constantly paranoid that you might receive a critical email that would demand immediate action or introduce a new issue. Or you’re constantly compelled to check your phone over and over again, since you don’t know when you’ll receive that next message or update. Furthermore, studies indirectly indicate that the more data you consume, the more stressed your feel.
This is problematic because stress causes your body to release certain hormones, such as cortisol. Too many stress hormones can have an effect on long term memory. Which means that the more you think about your phone, the less you can remember from years, months or even weeks ago.
The Bright Side

In spite of the mounting evidence that smartphones may negatively affect our memories, attention span and even our moods, there are some benefits to hyperconnectivity. Richtel mentioned in the Fresh Air interview that our ability to look things up—such as driving directions—saves us from having to ask for directions and then trying to keep all of that information in your head. Technology allows us to offload some of the things that we would have to remember instead.

Steven Johnson also penned a column in the New York Times some months ago defending the value of hyperconnectivity. He said that the value of technology lies in its social nature and the connections that we make. By being connected, we are exposed to more ideas, more people and more perspectives. He wrote:

Thanks to e-mail, Twitter and the blogosphere, I regularly exchange information with hundreds of people in a single day: scheduling meetings, sharing political gossip, trading edits on a book chapter, planning a family vacation, reading tech punditry. How many of those exchanges could happen were I limited exclusively to the technologies of the phone, the post office and the face-to-face meeting? I suspect that the number would be a small fraction of my current rate.
I have no doubt that I am slightly less focused in these interactions, but, frankly, most of what we do during the day doesn’t require our full powers of concentration. Even rocket scientists don’t do rocket science all day long.

Conclusion

Whether the impact of smartphones on our minds is good or bad, one thing is undeniable: it is changing the way we think and quite possibly, the way our brains function. Something to keep in mind as you carry your phone with you everywhere you go.

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Tags: Smartphones

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 26th, 2010 at 12:45 pm by Jack Busch and is filed under Cell Phones. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.