The bad side effects of excessive smartphone use are widely known and nothing new. But did you know that even when switched off your digital friend can mess with your concentration?
You don’t need to be a trained researcher to notice the following: Nowadays it is hardly impossible to be in a setting where not at least one person stares/ looks at their phone. Take the Pieter de la Court Building as an example. Trying to identify spots where no one uses their phone is simply impossible. Be it while studying the library, having lunch in
the cafeteria, taking the elevator to the 5th floor or queuing up in the bathroom: there were always at least 2 people who stared at their magic screen.
What do these people have in common despite checking their phones?
The majority of students are so-called “Digital natives”. We, the millennial generation cannot relate to the feeling of living without the internet, we find it hard to imagine a life in which not everyone is constantly available. Being so dependent on our digital devices, some of us might simply not survive without them. While this might point to our society sliding into a systematic smartphone addiction, let’s shift our attention to something else: As a matter of fact, this is exactly the point I want to make – with our smartphones being almost always only an arm length away, our attention is negatively influenced, even without being consciously aware of it.
Are we constantly multitasking?
On average, smartphone users of all age groups check their device 63 times per day [1]. That means that in at least 63 situations we are focussing on more than one task at a time – we are multitasking. Let’s take a moment to look at this phenomenon: Multitasking describes the concept of “continuous partial attention” (Friedmann, 2006). Consequently, despite the common belief, multitasking is never a good thing because it always messes up with our cognitive capacity and executive functions.
So, in many situations, your task at hand and your smartphone are fighting over the amount of attention you devote to it. I’m sure many of you can relate to the fact that phones can be a strong source of distraction while trying to concentrate. Research supports this: the time needed to perform an academic task increases when being distracted by a buzzing phone (Bowman, Levine, Waite, & Gendron, 2010).
But that’s not the whole story yet: A striking finding from a research group from the University of Texas showed that even when switched off, your phone unconsciously occupies your mind.
Take a moment to reflect about your own behaviour: Would you say that your phone often negatively influences your productivity? If you’re one of the people who keep their phones on the desk next to them while studying in the library why not, for a start, leave it in your bag and see if it makes a difference.
Not convinced yet?
Now, however, you might still wonder: What specific role does your switched off phone play in this scenario? What can observations in the Pieter de la Court Building tell us? And in what way might constant multitasking impact the general ability to concentrate for future generations? Make sure to read the other articles.
Bowman, L. L., Levine, L. E., Waite, B. M., & Gendron, M. (2010). Can students really multitask? An experimental study of instant messaging while reading. Computers & Education, 54(4), 927-931.
Ophir, E., Nass, C., & Wagner, A. D. (2009). Cognitive control in media multitaskers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(37), 15583-15587.
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