Having Your Smartphone Nearby Takes a Toll on Your Thinking (Even When It’s Silent and Facedown)

In two laboratory experiments, nearly 800 people completed tasks designed to measure their cognitive abilities. Prior to completing these tasks, the researchers will ask the participants to put the phone (down on the desk) in front of them, to put them in their pockets or bags, or to be in another room I asked. The result is amazing. The closer the phone is to the participants, the worse she becomes. The presence of our smartphone is like our name and the voice of a crying baby - these things will automatically draw our attention. Cognition is necessary to resist such tension

It is reasonable to assume that your performance for these tasks may be affected by noise or nearby conversations. But what about your smartphone in your pocket or wallet? According to new research, even if you do not see it, even if it does not ring your smartphone only, it will hurt your performance with certain cognitive tasks. Researchers published a series of experiments in the April 2017 issue of the Journal of the Consumer Research Association where 520 college students complete tasks that require concentration, attention and new problem solving skills Did. I was asked to keep the smartphone in another room. Others are allowed to keep them in places they normally do (eg in pockets and wallets). The third group was asked to place my phone in the next table.

Having your voice on your smartphone is the first big challenge. Signals from the microphone need to be filtered to obtain background noise from nearby sessions, music, television shows. Just thinking about the brains when loudly partying can invoke all chats except chat participating. After training a little in a quiet space, Moto X can recognize your voice in the noise. Other This includes computerization of gender, accents, and dialects in various languages ​​and examination.

In the workplace, you control your environment - "Make a fence" to prevent potential interference like noise and pop-ups. Control workspaces and gadgets, not technologies (think about computers and smartphones) or nearby colleagues. For example, before closing a conference, close the door or place a "quiet" sticky note outside the compartment. Mute all bells, ringtones, and pings and turn off visual alerts and social media messages. Reading and replying to text, e-mail, social media messages, can you separate you from a larger and important project? Then try clustertasking - a technique that you can group related tasks into specific segments during the day. For example, in an office, you can limit email to 3 copies a day. When you arrive in the morning, before lunch, and when you are ready to leave that day.