
The Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity - cronjobber
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/691462
======
nwatson
Bards pre-literate-times in Greece purportedly could recite Homer's Odyssey
themselves after one hearing. Writing destroyed that all. (Maybe I don't have
a citation right off, but I've read that on the web or heard it in some
college class years ago ... in any case, ability to retain heard information
has likely declined since then). But ... few people complain about how books
corrupt our memory.

So we're the first generation shifting cognitive burden of some kinds of
memory (all those phone numbers) elsewhere. I welcome it. My wife hates it,
but she likes the books. In a couple of generations it all will be irrelevant.

~~~
jff
You seem to be defending against a claim the study does not make. They're not
saying "smartphones make us stupid because Google's in your pocket!" Rather,
the study is saying that by having your phone on the desk or even in your
pocket, you will exhibit decreased mental capacity because your brain is using
some cognitive resources to monitor for notifications etc.

This may be over-simplified but appears to be backed up by the general
discussion on pages 10-11.

~~~
sillysaurus3
I keep my phone on silent and turn off all vibrations. There's no way to
notify me of anything until I look at it, but that's a feature.

~~~
KGIII
I realize that I am not typical, but I seldom even have my phone turned on,
and don't even take it with me very often.

I was tethered to a phone for years. I am retired. I only take it if I am
expecting to be idle. Then, I take it so I can browse while waiting.

It feels kinda nice, frankly. I am not a technophobe. It's just nice to not be
beholden to my phone.

~~~
alsetmusic
This reminds me of my experience giving up my wristwatch. I would glance at it
frequently, but then didn't know the time because the behavior was strictly
reflex. Finally, someone asked me for the time right after I did this and I
had to look again because I hadn't internalized it. That was the day I removed
my watch forever.

Your comment about being beholden to your phone reminds me a a great quote
that I recalled on that day: "Wearing a watch is like being handcuffed to
time."

~~~
copperx
> "Wearing a watch is like being handcuffed to time."

I like the quote because that's how I feel when I look at any digital clock or
watch. The millisecond accuracy of any NTP-aware device produces anxiety and
is unnecessary.

An analog watch, especially if it's a wind-up mechanical watch, which is by
its nature slightly inaccurate, is much more comforting. I feel like an
observer of time, and not a slave of it.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
A reliable clock produces anxiety over an unreliable one? Citation needed!

~~~
copperx
n=1, FWIW.

------
buf
I want to learn Japanese.

3 months ago I changed my phone's language to Japanese. Everything is Japanese
- maps, services, apps that read from the default phone language.

Oddly enough, instead of learning Japanese, I just use my phone less.

~~~
notadoc
That's kind of funny.

Similarly, I stopped listening to any music on my iPhone once I got an iPhone
7. Unexpected side effect of having no headphone jack, but I always forget the
dongle somewhere. So, no more music from the iPhone. I listen to old am/fm
talk radio again instead.

~~~
lathiat
Buy AirPods. Honestly.

~~~
notadoc
I considered it but I'm not a big fan of headphones, I usually listen to music
at home or in a car.

One of the most annoying situations was when I had a great podcast I wanted to
share with someone on a long drive, pulled out the iPhone 7 to plug into their
car stereo and.... new-ish car.... but AUX only.... no dongle..... never mind!

I believe Apple removed the headphone jack 5 or 10 years too early. Bluetooth
is not that great, and it's also not that widespread. AUX is not a floppy or
CD drive, it is everywhere and works great and allows for high quality audio,
no troubleshooting, no compression, no hassle. The alternatives (dongle?
Bluetooth?) is comparatively nowhere and does not work great.

~~~
anbende
Bluetooth radio transmitter for the car is like $100 (for a good one). Quality
is only slightly worse than radio (for a good one).

Problem solved. Enjoy

~~~
seszett
Worse than radio? That's not what I have experienced.

I'm using a 1,5€ BK8000L module
([http://www.electrodragon.com/w/BK8000L](http://www.electrodragon.com/w/BK8000L))
that I soldered to my old stock autoradio, replacing the tape audio circuit,
and the quality is much better than FM.

~~~
anbende
Sounds like you're connecting the device directly to the audio system. With a
radio transmitter, you're broadcasting on an fm band that the car picks up via
the fm tuner.

Of course if the person is willing to attach something to the car audio as you
have, that's the best!

~~~
seszett
I'm not sure what you were suggesting before, then, when saying that a
bluetooth transmitter is worse than radio... ah unless you were talking about
some kind of device => bluetooth => fm => autoradio contraption?

I didn't think about that, yeah, but the OP said they had an AUX input, so
quality should be good with a (even cheap) bluetooth adapter on that.

------
thesagan
I lost mine about six months ago and I haven't replaced it. First couple
months I noticed I got VERY irritable when I got a momentary flash of boredom,
especially waiting in line in stores, etc. Figured that might've been a
budding mental issue, and decided to work on my patience and expectation-
setting as a result.

This has been part of a larger life exercise in practicing general moment-to-
moment mindfullness, and I think I'm going to keep this up for a while and see
how long I can go without a smartphone before people start asking me questions
at work. So far, so good.

It's like I've withdrawn from a drug and some of my attention is back under my
control, where my mind can better keep its peace. I guess I didn't exercise
proper discipline when I had the phone.

~~~
throwawaycopy
Try keeping a sketch pad for quick illustrations or perhaps a notebook for
poems. The world is filled with inspiration! Not only will you be more
present, but you'll be turning your seemingly humdrum life into a work of art!

~~~
jxramos
I love that interpretation of jotting down information as creating a
mindfulness work of art. What a thought! I used to do the cliche "note to
self" with a voice recorder, that I've recently been desiring again. My cell
phone is too slow to respond to my inspirations having to log in past the
keycode, launch the app, dump mental information. Stepping through those hoops
seems to decay my inspiration. You make me think about reverting back to old
technology like the pen and paper. Come to think of it I get the sense that
the mental decay from fishing for those materials in my pocket is less than
futzing with a cell phone.

~~~
contingencies
I actually carry a cheap USB wacom tablet around with my laptop for such
purposes... I swear by it, it gives you almost the full freedom of paper
without the restrictions of manual media (undo, scaling, duplication,
restyling, etc.)

~~~
TranquilMarmot
Have you ever tried a boogie board?
[https://www.myboogieboard.com/](https://www.myboogieboard.com/)

Writing on it is very natural/paper feeling, there's no erasing or anything.
With the more expensive models, it can sync the notes to a computer/cloud
service.

~~~
jxramos
wow, it's pretty affordable. How do you write multiple pages on it?

~~~
TranquilMarmot
The way the screen works, it can only erase the whole screen in one go. I
think with the cloud-connected ones, you can save the page off before erasing
it and then view them later.

------
Phemist
I am quite skeptical of the results of this paper. The claims are very strong,
but the paper was published in "Journal of the Association for Consumer
Research". I would AT LEAST expect it to be published in a journal related to
cognitive sciences (even low-impact cognitive science journals would be fine),
this seems like a safety net journal that is not really related to any of
that..

Anyway, reading through the paper, there are a few methodological issues that
I believe severely weaken the claims made by the authors.

1\. Even though the claims made specifically towards phones, there was no
"control" item situation.

2\. Participants were explicitly drawn to the item in 2 out of 3 conditions
right before the task.

3\. Experiment 1 does not randomize on task (OSpan and RSPM) order.

4\. Item (phone) dependency tests were based on self-reporting. Why not some
more objective measure like in a neutral situation, how many times does the
participant take the phone out of their pockets to check it?

5\. As far as I can tell, there is no control for differences in their
population & their measure of phone dependency (ie, is phone dependency
uncorrelated to factors like age?)

but really, the killer finding is: there is a (non-linear) interaction effect
between phone dependence and phone location. In the phone on desk condition,
there is a negative correlation between phone dependence and performance on
the OSpan (working memory) task (which is the result the abstract talks
about), but in the phone/bag AND other room condition, there is a POSITIVE
correlation between phone dependence and performance on the OSpan test.

So based on these results, I can make the claim that we should use our phone
MORE to increase our cognitive capacity. We should become more dependent on
them. We just need to remember to put them away, out of sight, rather than
leave them on the table nearby.

I would put as much trust in the claim above as the original claim by the
paper's authors.

EDIT: continuous grammar improvements

~~~
Phemist
To clarify a bit further as I can no longer edit my post:

The points about the methodology stand, and I don't believe one should update
ones beliefs in either way based on this paper.

The "killer" finding is not necessarily a killer towards the reported results
(which are dubious anyway), but towards the way the paper is presenting these
results. The missing discussion of this interaction effect between phone
dependence and phone location is what makes me very much doubt the quality of
the paper.

------
schnevets
I know that I'm guilty of this - just voluntarily putting my phone in the
other room causes withdrawal-like anxiety, followed by a greater sense of
awareness.

Maybe future generations will see our management of information devices as
backwards and unhealthy once we learn more about the human brain, the same way
we treat smoking, child-rearing, and daily routines of yesterday as
horrifyingly detrimental.

~~~
Apocryphon
In the near future we're going to see even more "information diets", "digital
cleanses", meditative go-to-nature sort of breaks integrated into lifestyle
routines.

~~~
ashark
My wife and I recently spent a few nights at an Airbnb in the mountains where
we couldn't get cell reception and the wifi had a crappy satellite Internet
connection we'd been asked to avoid using as much as possible. Also none of
our digital crap was there, just a few physical books we brought and some card
games the hosts provided.

It felt _great_. It's had me thinking more and more or the digital things and
the hyper-available entertainment and information (and, maybe importantly,
hyper-available _choice_ of which to indulge in, at a moment's notice) as kind
of junk-food like.

Yeah it's cool to be able to watch all this crap from my childhood, and a
thousand great tv shows or movies, or hundreds of the best video games yet
made, or browse endlessly for new music tailored to my tastes, or whatever,
totally on demand—but maybe that kind of thing's just not healthy to have
around.

~~~
jff
> Yeah it's cool to be able to watch all this crap from my childhood, and a
> thousand great tv shows or movies, or hundreds of the best video games yet
> made, or browse endlessly for new music tailored to my tastes, or whatever,
> totally on demand—but maybe that kind of thing's just not healthy to have
> around.

I feel the same, although I have a hard time articulating it well. I think I'm
slightly better at not watching hour after hour of utter garbage than I used
to be, though.

------
jonbarker
A simple demonstration of the inefficiency of task switching. Time yourself
writing the letters of the alphabet in order from a to z followed by the
numbers 1-26. Then try the same task only instead switching from numbers to
letters, like this a,1,b,2,c,3, etc. Compare the two times. They should be the
same, but the second version takes much more time for most people. It seems
that whether you sit next to a giant bookshelf or put your phone in your
pocket and occasionally think of the information either contains the effect on
the efficiency of whatever you were trying to process would be the same.

~~~
cracell
On the flip side my smart phone often allows me to look up needed information
about something I'm currently thinking about or working on. So I can stay in
the same task instead of noting it and having to come back to it later after
I've looked it up from a laptop or in a library prior to the modern internet.

I think the effects of a smart phone on someone varies greatly depending on
how exactly the individual uses it.

~~~
jonbarker
How could one design a test for the last statement above (which resembles a
hypothesis)? In practice it seems the statement "varies greatly depending on
how the individual uses it" equates too easily with "varies greatly depending
on the individual" (fundamental attribution error). Also, it may be that we
believe we are very good at using something to our advantage when in fact we
should not be using it at all (casinos exploit this problem). The reality is
that it is impossible to split test oneself to discover whether in fact there
was a benefit, although I wish this were possible. Maybe try something very
difficult in two scenarios: play a game of skill which may benefit from
looking something up (like chess openers) several times without a phone and
several times with access to the phone to see whether there is a difference in
performance against a continuously adaptive algorithmic opponent.

------
daxfohl
Mine broke last week. I haven't replaced it and almost don't intend to because
I do feel more alert now. Though the feeling is subsiding, so perhaps it's a
temporary thing.

I wonder in the study, is the control group smartphone users temporarily
deprived of the phones, or non-smartphone users. Could make a big difference.

~~~
Phemist
The control group were smart phone users and high smart phone dependence was
in fact positively correlated with performance on the cognitive tests, on the
condition that the smart phone was not on the desk in front of them. However,
I wouldn't put too much faith in either results.

------
abandonliberty
Mental exercise:

Does smartphone deprivation return cognitive capacity to baseline or cause
people to exceed it? Phone deprivation may induce a higher state of attention
than before a person had a phone if they associate phone deprivation with
focus situations such as exams or crises.

Having a phone around may train the brain to relax and offload tasks, leaving
it more fresh to focus when required.

------
stretchwithme
So true. And in-car GPS keeps your sense of direction from developing.

I've seen people stymied as to how they could possibly make a phone call
without their phones. Payphone. Borrow someone else's. Not that hard.

I used to think this would only ever happen to geeks like me. Boy, was I
wrong.

~~~
danso
After I lost my phone to a robber late at night, I walked home (which was
about 15 minutes away) so I could look up the nearest police precinct station.
The detectives looked at me like I was the biggest idiot for not calling 911
from the nearest pay phone (this was before NYC converted their pay phones
into whatever they are these days).

~~~
shric
Is it really considered okay to call 911 for a stolen phone? I thought 911 was
for emergencies (e.g. imminent danger to property or someone's life or
health). If your phone's already stolen, what can the police do urgently? This
assumes they can respond quickly. I wouldn't have thought a stolen phone would
result in a quick response in NYC.

~~~
danso
It was a robbery by gunpoint. I wouldn't have reported it if it were just a
theft.

------
jshelly
The proliferation of video currently gets my goat. I like to read news, not
watch it.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I agree. Aside from the egregiously asshole move of auto-playing video
(sometimes related, sometimes not), I can typically read an article much
faster than an anchor can narrate it.

------
amorphid
I predict someone will invent a smart utensil. It will be a smartphone-like
device that has a curated app store which only includes utilitarian apps.
It'll contain all of the apps people think "I'd love to ditch my smart phone,
but I'd really miss <utility apps>".

Apps I really want AND never waste time on:

\- ride sharing (Lyft, Uber)

\- calendar

\- calculator

\- mobile banking

\- movie times & reviews

\- booking a place to stay (CounchSurfing, Airbnb)

\- public transit schedules

\- camera (only pictures, not picture sharing)

\- identity verification (RSA, Okta Verify)

\- alarm clock

~~~
stormbeard
The types of people that would want this can already do it with their smart
phones. What's gained by crippling a device to only support certain classes of
apps?

~~~
whitepoplar
It's like comparing Advil to Heroin. Heroin is better at numbing pain, but
people prefer to take Advil as it's not addictive and won't damage us.

------
zachd1_618
Like most commenters here, I've found a happy medium (when I activate it). I'm
no good at cold turkey and being without this amazing device is just
impractical, but airplaning the phone routinely throughout the day really
helps to cut down on "notification checking" and that constant background
mental polling that this article talks about. I still like to have music
(audiobooks actually) and navigation on hand, but knowing I have no
notifications and knowing that there is just a _tiny_ bit of effort involved
in getting them seems to be my effective compromise.

~~~
danso
When I need a break from social networks, I just log out of the app/sites on
my phone. Since most of my passwords are unmemorizable (and stored in a
password manager), it's quite a bit of work to get logged in again. It's
enough work that I'll put it off for a week at least.

*typo

~~~
bigbugbag
social networks ? like playing sports with friends, visiting family, job
events ?

~~~
danso
Twitter and Facebook mostly

------
mysterypie
Has anyone here tried asking everyone to not look at or fiddle with their
phones at a meeting they've called or a social event they've organized? How
did it work out?

What about going the extra step of collecting the phones to be returned when
the meeting or event is over?

Is there any way to do either of these without coming off as a jerk?

~~~
infectoid
Ever tried the Phone Stacking game with friends?

In short: You all stack your phones on each other after ordering food. First
person to crack pays the bill.

[https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/you-
have...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/you-have-2-new-
text-messages-also-youre-paying-for-dinner/article2296118/)

------
logfromblammo
My family calls this the "Crimson Tide Effect".

It was named thus because we were once eating in a bar/restaurant situated
below ground level, with no mobile phone reception whatsoever. At one point,
someone mentioned "that submarine movie with Denzel Washington and Gene
Hackman in it." We couldn't remember the name of the movie. We could almost
recite the entire script, but couldn't say the _name of the danged movie_.

We tried (in vain) all the way through lunch. We managed the name of the
submarine, the Alabama, but not the name of the movie. So the instant we left,
off to the Internet movie database. Crimson Tide! Ah, because it was the
Alabama! It makes sense now!

Most recent occurrence was two days ago, when we couldn't remember the name of
the band that sang "Cult of Personality" for over 15 minutes. We could
remember that they were a rare instance of a rock band with black people in
it. We could remember that they were not a one-hit wonder, because they had
one other hit.

I can only hope that memory storage has been repurposed for more useful data
rather than simply lost.

------
KamiCrit
What has worked out well for me is a flip phone. The modern ones have all the
offline smartphone features you need to get by. Call, text, alarms,
calculator, camera. I have found it to be rugged, inexpensive, and one week
battery life is a great selling point.

And when I get home to my computer, the refreshing relaxation of the internet
is great.

Smartphones making people dumb, dumb phones making people sane.

------
dvcrn
I wonder if there is a effective way to counter this without giving up on the
phone completely. Discipline is of course the main thing but let's be honest,
that's like telling an opiod addict to 'just use it less'.

I tried meditating in the train instead of fiddling with my phone. I can
definitely feel the urge to read up on something despite knowing that there's
not really anything that currently needs my attention on the phone anyway.

Also I replaced my digital calendar and task list with a bullet journal that
I'm carrying around. I was surprisingly more successful with keeping task load
under control. As a test, I bought the new Things 3 and used it with
Fantastical for a month instead of my journal. I was able to add things faster
but actually getting things done has become slower. Though the Calendar
reminders are definitely super helpful.

Maybe a detox in a country where you don't have mobile data or wifi might be
nice.

------
quickben
This worked for me:

DND on for priority only, forever. Star my wife.

Then I can check my phone at my leisure time for everything else.

~~~
tomfitz
I do this, which helps a lot. I still find myself mindlessly browsing during
"downtime", however.

------
jimmahoney
The statistically significant result is that scores on this test : "in each
trial set, participants complete a series of math problems (information
processing) while simultaneously updating and remembering a randomly generated
letter sequence (information maintenance)" were significantly different for
those with their phone silenced, face down on the desk next to them than for
those with their phones in another room.

Given that this test essentially measures attention and distractions would
seem to affect performance, I wonder what the results would be for some other
object on the desk in the field of view - a book or a photo say - rather than
just a phone.

------
tristanho
An effortless hack which I've gotten a lot of utility out of: put your phone
behind your laptop.

Out of sight, out of mind (and you can't feel it in your pocket either!)

~~~
vlasev
A related hack if you don't want to put your phone behind your laptop - put
the phone screen-side down. This way the changing states of the screen (when
you get a notification) won't distract you.

~~~
daniel_rh
The researchers specifically tested phone face up vs phone face down and
noticed no statistical difference, I believe.

~~~
lucaspiller
I guess it depends on if you have (and are used to having) you phone make a
noise when you receive notifications. I have most notifications set to silent,
and some I let vibrate. The only thing that makes a sound is my alarm and
calls.

Since smart phones became a thing I've always had them set to vibrate, I don't
really see why you need your phone to make a sound (and disturb other people)
when you get such things as an Instagram like or a game wanting you to play
more. Biggest quality of life improvement was disabling vibrate (so it's
silent) for instant messages and SMS (which my phone always notifies me twice
about?) - they can wait a few minutes to hours and don't need instant replies.

------
kulu2002
This is indeed a good study. I recently experienced one such thing. I bought
fitness tracker which I used to monitor my sleep quality. I paired it to
smartphone and kept phone aside and slept wearing the tracker. This activity I
repeated for entire week and I found that my sleep quality over the week
exacerbated compared to time when there was no tracker. When I thought over
this, I found out that when I was sleeping wearing the tracker, I was
subconsciously thinking continuously about how my sleep quality will be, how
will be my heart-rate during sleep, it should always be in resting zone,
etc... I had all sorts of kinda unnecessary apprehensions/ worries. This was
OK for a day or two... then I got used to the tracker, still my quality of
sleep was poor for remaining week. When I further thought over this, it
appeared to me that I had setup a goal for daily 6 hour sound sleep and I have
to achieve that. I had subconscious pressure to achieve that goal which is
making me restless frequently. Atlast I gave up experiment of sleep monitoring
and now I can sleep peacefully without tracker. :-)

------
clw8
Funny timing, I almost got hit yesterday (at a speed that could have been
fatal) by a driver who most likely was either checking notifications or
actively texting, while I was biking right on the UC campus. Immediately
jerked my handlebar to the right and dumped myself into the grass and escaped
with a huge gash above my left eye. Our self-driving overlords can't take over
soon enough.

~~~
notadoc
The next time you're driving around on a street or highway, look around at
your fellow drivers. It is absolutely shocking the number of people who are
staring down at their phones.

~~~
tim333
They recently jacked up the penalties in the UK (six points on the licence and
£200 spot fine). Maybe it'll help.

------
notadoc
I've come to hate notifications, alerts, and digital nags of all kinds. I
disable practically all of them on every device I own, the only unsolicited
notifications I want are from rare legitimate emergencies.

But yea, simply having a smartphone around makes you want to fiddle with it. I
would guess there is some addictive component there, as it impacts nearly
everyone.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
> _there is some addictive component there_

That's by design. There's a whole science of making the customer come back
over and over again.

~~~
notadoc
Right, and you can feel it, though I'm not sure if most people are aware of
it.

The smartphone and social media often feels like a glorified Skinner box.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber)

------
holografix
How does one manage a strong appetite to learn new things and the compulsion
to look at their smartphone all the time?

I recently started getting into photography and I'm finding it very hard not
to look at different lenses and Lightroom tips etc etc on my phone.

Combine that with a desire to learn about new tech and program and I end up
spending a lot of time looking at it.

~~~
gukov
You're not actually learning but feeding your novelty-seeking brain. The best
way to learn is to actually take photos, not research lenses.

Being in motion vs action: [http://jamesclear.com/taking-
action](http://jamesclear.com/taking-action)

------
laretluval
Wake me up after the registered replication.

~~~
obstinate
Yours seems like a flippant response, but I don't think that it is. We have to
be wary of confirmation bias here on HN. Would someone even think to publish a
study where no effect was found? And then would someone post that link to HN?
And then would it get upvoted? It's important to remember that we are not
seeing a uniform sample of news stories here. We are seeing a highly biased
selection, and it's important to appropriately discount things appropriately.

------
OJFord
Why do I need to enable cookies to see any content here?

I'm genuinely asking, because there's an informative error message, so it's
clearly deliberate; I just can't understand the motivation.

Edit: the only human-readable cookie is 'machine_last_seen', perhaps that's
just considered a really important statistic...

~~~
inetknght
I ask the same thing any time a site doesn't work without javascript

~~~
OJFord
That annoys me, but I understand (from a 'how they built the site'
perspective) why it happens.

------
gdubs
Just finished reading "The Distracted Mind". Highly recommend it if you're
interested in a broad summary of all the research out there on the effects of
technology on our cognitive control - executive function, attention, working
memory, ability to get things done, etc.

------
slowmovintarget
We just need better integration with our exocortex.

~~~
dmurawsky
Please explain...

~~~
stretchwithme
I think he's referring to efforts like this one:

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/27/15077864/elon-musk-
neural...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/27/15077864/elon-musk-neuralink-
brain-computer-interface-ai-cyborgs)

------
dmurawsky
Thanks for all the rationalization I could ever want for keeping my phone on
DND 24/7

~~~
notadoc
That is an excellent choice, based on personal experience I would highly
recommend it.

I put 3-4 important people on the exception list and ignore everything else.
You will find 99.9% of alerts and digital nags are adding zero value to your
life and require no action at all, let alone immediate action warranting your
attention and a big buzz and chime.

------
foota
I'm somewhat surprised they didn't have a group in their studies with some
other irrelevant object (say, the person's wallet) on their desk. I know that
having anything in my personal space disrupts my ability to think.

------
carrja99
Sounds about right, also for productivity. I began having a strict "no cell
phones" rule after school and on weekends and found as a family we were much
more productive plus had much more enjoyable conversations.

------
JoeDaDude
"This discovery of yours [writing] will create forgetfulness in the learners'
souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the
external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which
you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give
your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be
hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be
omniscient and will generally know nothing"

\- "The dialogue of Phaedrus, Plato

------
jutanium
I'm an observant Jew, so I keep Shabbat every Saturday. Among our creative
restrictions is the prohibition of using electronic devices. I've always had
this feeling of mindfulness and focus on Shabbat that ends when I'm free to
pick up my phone. Against my will, pretty much, I'm drawn to it, and like the
authors say, I check it randomly at inopportune times.

These authors expressed scientifically what I've been feeling for years.

------
cdkee
I haven't gone quite so far as to ditch my smartphone yet, but I now leave it
on silent, no vibrations or LED notifications or anything. Whenever I check my
phone maybe once an hour at work I see anything that requires my attention,
otherwise I put it away. It's made me more sane, but I've often thought about
ditching it entirely. It's sad that I feel like I might not be able to
function entirely without it.

~~~
bigbugbag
Replace it with a regular phone, it will make a significant difference.

------
nurettin
Oddly enough, the presence of my wife reduces my cognitive abilities due to me
instinctively offloading most of my responsibilities to her.

------
williamsmj
Results of this kind, which attract "aren't people on their phones a lot these
days, and also millennials should stop buying avocado toast"-level Huffington
Post columnists, have consistently failed to replicate:
[http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3048418](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3048418)

------
m3kw9
This isn't profound because a phone is made to distract you, or from a
business view, get your attention

~~~
pas
That's not really a good model of phones.

Our phones are so powerfully captivating because of the high-speed Internet
connection it hides. New information at the tips of your fingers, just a swipe
and even more things! Facebook, Instagram, messaging apps, HN, Reddit, news,
and so on.

Sure, there are addictive offline things (games mostly), but that's not the
things people usually complain about.

Phones are made to be efficient magic boxes of interesting things. It can load
anyone's poison in just a few blinks.

------
mezuzi
I deleted reddit, instagram and quora and have deactivated facebook for over a
year now!! I only have HN and the NYtimes and I get sparse notifications from
the latter. I don't care much about my phone as I spend most of my day glued
to my laptop.

------
damontal
Decided to keep my phone out of my pocket while at home. Just put it on a
shelf. I was really surprised at how often my hand just reflexively goes to my
pocket for the phone. I only noticed it happening because my phone was not
there.

------
real-hacker
Perfect time to recommend a book: The Shallows. Digital information overload
not only makes us less attentive, it also makes us shallow. We are exposed to
so much information, that we have little time to think deeply about something.

------
amelius
Is this similar to a man's IQ dropping when there is a beautiful woman nearby?

------
whitepoplar
What I really want: an ultra high-end cell phone that has a camera built in.
Phone calls, SMS, photos, and that's it. Differentiate on build quality, great
design, and minimal features.

~~~
MengerSponge
[https://lifehacker.com/how-i-turned-my-iphone-into-a-
simple-...](https://lifehacker.com/how-i-turned-my-iphone-into-a-simple-
distraction-free-1175739059)

The iPhone has the best build quality (come at me), and you can easily make it
do what you're looking for here. A device that doesn't give you the option of
extra features won't sell enough to get the scale you need for really high
build quality.

------
johnchristopher
Would putting the smartphone away, out of sight (in a drawer or the pocket of
a bag) and on do-not-disturb alleviate the symptoms ? I myself find my mind
quieter when I do that.

------
ramijames
I recently removed all notifications from my phone (except calls) and it has
drastically improved my life. I felt like a slave to a fucking device. It was
ridiculous.

------
imron
20 years ago I knew all the phone numbers of all my friends.

Today I barely remember my own phone number.

I have outsourced the cognitive load to my phone.

I'm still not sure if that's better or worse.

------
basicplus2
Now I know why I had trouble reading the heading...

------
TheRealmccoy
Perhaps the most conclusive study to prove that mobile learning (on a
smartphone) is a myth and at most a vanity.

------
anc84
Misleading y axes strike again...

------
LeicaLatte
Smartphones should be banned in all meetings.

------
isaaaaah
it is rather that wikipedia and google, parts of my weltbild (brain), get
totally damaged in the wake of the adpocalypse

~~~
bigbugbag
Google got really bad at providing relevant search results, wikipedia did a
terrific job of providing URL to official websites and killing many of the
relevant and interesting websites that I used to find left and right, they
gone now.

------
outworlder
All of those "ditch the smartphone" comments are so cute.

I'm on devops. Can't ditch the smartphone.

~~~
moxious
People want to want to ditch the smartphone. Very few actually want to. Proof:
sales in the hundreds of millions.

It sucks when capitalism shows people what they really want because sometimes
it pierces people's bubbles of who they think they are and they find out who
they actually are.

~~~
swiley
Having a two way internet pager (being able to read and send email) is good.
Almost everything else about smartphones is really not that good but worth
tolerating for email.

------
shakil
Looks like nothing to me

------
Principe
I've been trying to stay on top of my technology usage. I'd like to move all
my electronics out of my bedroom and buy an old fashioned alarm clock. I've
heard this is good for sleep and healthy habits and what not

I've been trying to stay off my phone when I'm bored and clean/read/do
something productive without technology. I'm glad I had a chance to grow up in
the 90's before tech was involved from every waking moment.

It doesn't help that I'm a network admin and I work on my computer all day

